Welcome to 221B Baker St
by weezerz2490
Summary: Sherlock and John were just going about their daily routine at 221b Baker St. when something strange happened. Who is this girl, and how did she manage to get in their flat? Rated for crime scenes, and language   subject to change
1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

**Hi this is my first fanfic for BBC's Sherlock. Needless to say it's not mine, and I don't really own anything except for my OCs. A friend of mine asked me to write this for her saying "I bet you could come up with a good murder, you're a natural!" I'm still not sure if that was really meant as a complement or not, but w/e. My OC might seem like a Mary Sue (she even has my real name) but that's because I write what I know, and this same friend thought it was just "adorable" when she found out I was "Louise from Louisiana" – gag me with a spoon – I've changed other names and places to protect the innocent and the guilty. I might borrow some plot bunnies from other series because, hey I'm only human and having to use all my creativity for my art projects can suck me dry. I'll mention what the things I borrow are from when I do. This first case in this fic is completely my own though, at least as far as I know…it's hard to be completely original with so many ideas floating around, and most of them have been done already – we're just rediscovering them. Thanks to the peeps that actually bothered to read this, enjoy!**

Prologue

Hammond, 6:30 P.M.

The Rouge Residence

"Louise go get your brother! Supper's ready!" a blonde woman shouted to her daughter from the kitchen doorway. Louise, who had only just walked through the door after a long day at college, sighed in annoyance before saying,

"Okay Mom." Too tired and annoyed to bother doing anything else, Louise dropped her backpack on the floor, kicking off her shoes, and trudged down the hallway to fetch her brother. Why did she have to do this, she just spent the whole day doing actual work. Her brother Joseph had come home for spring break because his school had let out for the holidays earlier than hers – lucky dog! She knocked softly on his door and waited until he started to open it to yell, "Joe-Joe, supper's ready!" Louise had quite a set of lungs on her; needless to say her brother glared at her as he checked to make sure his ears weren't bleeding.

"Do you have to yell like a toddler on a sugar high _every_ time you need something?" he asked darkly as he scowled at her. She smirked, quite pleased with herself, and was about to heckle him even more when she noticed something strange behind him.

"What's that?" Louise asked while pointing to a rather odd machine that was sitting in the middle of her brother's room. It didn't look anything like the other engineering projects he'd built over the years.

"Oh, that?" Joseph smirked at her. "It's just my latest project. You wouldn't understand, even if I explained it to you." He brushed past her and started towards to kitchen. "By the way, you touch it, and you're dead!" He called back at her. Well after that last jibe Louise just_ had_ to mess with it now (Sibling rivalry and all that). She stuck her tongue out at him even though he couldn't see it and approached the machine. It didn't look any more complex than anything else she had ever seen him make, but then a gain she was an art major, and he was a genius electrical engineer from the womb. She reached out to poke it, but before she could do anything, the machine suddenly came to life and she felt as tough an electrical current was running through her finger to the rest of her body. There was a bright flash, and then pain.


	2. Ch1 Surprise, Surprise!

**A/N: AS you might have noticed I tend to include a lot of details in my writing, but believe it or not, that's after I cut it down. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it.]I also do NOT own BBC's Sherlock.**

Surprise, Surprise!

John woke with a start as he realized he forgot he had to be at the clinic that day. He quickly jumped out of bed, threw on his clothes, and rushed out of his room. John noticed Sherlock was already in the kitchen performing one of his experiments as he called out his hurried goodbye, but before he could reach the door, something rather strange happened. There was a zapping sound like crackling electricity. Then a very faint, transparent figure appeared. As the figure rapidly became more solid and opaque, John realized it was a young girl. Once she was completely solid, her body hit the floor with a thud. The girl groaned and a loud "ow" was heard. John reacted to this in a perfectly normal fashion – he freaked out. John was shocked into silence by the strange event unfolding before his eyes.

Sherlock had been admittedly surprised to see a girl materialize out of thin air in his flat, but he quickly collected himself and began deducing her. He watched as the girl picked herself up off the floor into a sitting position and glance around the room as though searching for something. The girl was blond with hazel eyes, short, and appeared to be much younger than him. She was obviously confused and disorientated as she started taking inventory of her new environment. She didn't look particularly surprised when she saw the clutter about their flat, she must be used to it. When she saw the skull however, she was more than just a little surprised, but she also looked a little amused. After seeping her eyes over the mantle her eyes stopped on himself and John. The girl's eyes widened as she finally realized she was not alone. She nervously glanced between the two men – the two _strange_ men – that she was suddenly alone in an unfamiliar room with. Her eyes darted to the door just as Sherlock spoke. "John, shouldn't you be off to the clinic now?"

John seemed to finally snap out of his stupor. "Oh, right – Christ I'm late!" he shouted as he grabbed his coat and ran out the door. John had to admit he was relieved to have an excuse to escape from such a strange and impossible occurrence. He wasn't worried about Sherlock, after the incident at the pool with Moriarty, John was sure Sherlock could handle himself. He did feel a bit guilty about leaving that poor girl alone with Sherlock. He might dissect her…

The girl looked startled at John's sudden departure and she stared after him for a few moments before looking back at Sherlock. "Um, I'm sorry," she said smiling apologetically, "but could you tell me where I am and who you are? I'm Louise by the way." Sherlock stared at her for a moment before replying,

"My name is Sherlock Holmes, The man who just left is John Watson, and you are in our flat, 221B Baker St., London, England." Louise just stared at him in utter shock. Sherlock supposed the reality of her situation had not completely sunk in until she heard her current location. Judging by her accent and clothing brands, she was from America, specifically somewhere in the south.

"England!" Louise cried, "I'm in _England_? You – you're _Sherlock Holmes_? And I suppose Mr. Watson is actually _Dr. Watson _just back from Afghanistan?" She was shooting him an extremely incredulous look. Sherlock was a bit surprised. Why was she so surprised to hear their names? She also managed to figure out that Watson was a doctor, not that it wasn't completely obvious, but most people were rather slow. She probably just read John's blog or found his website, but still, he _was_ bored. Why not drag this out a bit longer?

"Why did you react that way to our names?" Sherlock asked her. She visibly relaxed slightly and shook her head before replying a bit sheepishly,

"Right, sorry about that. I'm just feeling kind of over whelmed with all the weirdness. Your parents must have been big Doyle fans, huh?"

"Doyle who?" Sherlock asked. He honestly had no idea what she was talking about, and found himself a bit peeved when she stared at him like he was and idiot. Louise blinked and raised her eyebrows as she said,

"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? You really don't know? I mean he's the one who wrote all of the Sherlock Holmes novels."

"There are novels about me?" Sherlock asked. Whoever this Doyle was, he certainly had not gotten Sherlock's permission. He was facing some serious copyright infringements. Louise frowned.

"No, not about _you_, Sherlock Holmes, the _fictional_ ace detective and his _fictional_ faithful sidekick and friend Dr. John Watson. Even though he's not a real person, He's still considered to be one of the greatest detectives of all time. I even bought a deerstalker hat because of him." she said very seriously and went on to list several of these stories. Sherlock actually blinked. This man was apparently not only writing about characters with the exact same names as John and him, but he was not even creating his own plots – I mean _A Study In Scarlet_? It was just what John had written for his blog entry _A Study In Pink_, but he set it during the 1800s instead. Which was when Louise claimed he actually wrote it. Sherlock thought for a moment that maybe he had just deleted this information after hearing it before, but the parallels were just too strong. It was slightly unsettling, and what was the significance of the hat? Sherlock didn't answer her. Instead, he left his place in the kitchen and swept over to his laptop, well John's laptop, his was in the bedroom. He opened the internet browser and started searching for in formation on "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle". Louise just stared after him before she suddenly remembered something very important. She forgot to call her family and let them know she was okay. She pulled out her cellphone to make the call, but when she looked at the screen, it said "activation required". This was very strange. She'd had the phone for months now, and it never gave her any problems. She had even just used it an hour ago to let her mother know she was leaving school. Louise looked back at Sherlock who was staring intently at his computer screen.

"Can I borrow your phone?" she asked, "Please? I promise I'll pay you back for whatever long distance charges I run up on it." Sherlock tossed her his phone. She fumbled with it before finally catching it. She quickly dialed her home phone number as Sherlock watched her. He was staring so intensely it was making her even more nervous. Louise heard her mother answer the phone. "Hi Mom, it's me, Louise," she said smiling. Then her face fell. "What do you mean Louise who? I'm your one and only daughter. I'm calling to tell you – W-What? Wait!" Louise pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it in shock. She looked up at Sherlock, stunned and said, " She didn't recognize me. She didn't recognize me, and she said she doesn't have a daughter. She told me her daughter "Louise Rouge" was still born twenty-one years ago." She swallowed. "_I'm_ twenty-one," she said, "I could hear my dad and my brother laughing in the background. They're not worried about my sudden disappearing act at all."

"Your full name is Louise Rouge?" Sherlock asked. Louise just stared at him. She just told him her family was treating her like a stranger, and _that_ is what he noticed?

"Yeah," she answered recovering from her shock, "My full name is Louise Marie Rouge." Sherlock immediately typed this into the search engine. "Did you just google me?" She asked.

"Yes." He answered her absentmindedly as he read the new information appearing on his screen, or rather the lack of information. Louise came to stand behind him and leaned over as she read over his shoulder. What she saw only added to her confusion. Nothing. There was absolutely no information popping up on her. There were some articles on her aunt, Louise Françoise, from when she was a nurse, but there was nothing about _her_. Her friends had googled her before and they told her tons of stuff had popped up about her achievements at school and her work on the Deviant Art website, but now it was like she had been completely erased. She mentioned this to Sherlock. Sherlock was not surprised after he had overheard her conversation with her mother and the results of his previous search.

"Nothing came up when I searched for Doyle either." He told her

"What?" She asked. Louise was beyond confused and way too upset from her series of consecutive shocks to even attempt to keep up with Sherlock. Sherlock sighed impatiently as he realized Louise was on a downward spiral that would eventually make her very difficult to deal with. Perhaps he shouldn't have reminded John to leave. John was more accustomed to handling people than he was. He was also reluctant to share his theory on Louise's sudden appearance here because it was utterly ridiculous. It was _impossible._ Then again it was supposed to be impossible for a human being to suddenly materialize out of thin air too. "Do you know what's happening?" Louise asked him hesitantly. Sherlock looked at her and said,

"Tell me about the events leading up to your arrival at our flat, leave nothing out."


	3. Ch2 Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

**A/N: Again I own nothing. I'm also American; I'm not even going pretend to know everything about British customs and slang. So, if you see anything that needs correcting or have any suggestions, let me know! Enjoy and thanks for reading!**

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

After Louise told Sherlock her side of the story, the two of them sat in silence. It felt like an eternity, but it was really only ten seconds before Louise decided she couldn't take it anymore.

"So, are you going to tell me what's going on?" she asked. Sherlock slowly exhaled before launching in to his explanation.

"There are several possible explanations as to why and how you ended up here. However, the only one that fits, with absolutely no holes in it, is completely impossible." He stated. Louise could tell he was reluctant to say whatever it was out loud, but she needed to know. She also got the impression that he was usually blunt and brutally honest.

"And that explanation is?" she prodded.

"Your brother's machine, whatever it was, seems to be the catalyst that caused you to suddenly be transported from your home in America to our flat in London. Now, upon your arrival here, you materialized in the middle of our sitting room. You also mentioned an author who does not exist; in fact, you also do not seem to exist. Maybe with more time and better resources I might be able to find something on you, but after your conversation with your "mother" I doubt that. You clearly come from a loving family, and you seem to be rather close to your brother despite your sibling rivalry. Therefore it is unlikely they would react to your disappearance in such a way. Also, your "mother" said that her "daughter" was stillborn, that is not what people usually say when they disown their children." Sherlock paused as he steepled his hands in front of him and looked at Louise. She was hanging on his every word.

"And? I come from an odd family, but you're right my mom would never say that to me. I don't think they'd disown me even if I did crack, got pregnant, and eloped to Vegas." Louise stated.

"Really?" Sherlock asked. If only his family was so agreeable.

"Yes really," she answered, "That's what family does. We love each other, even when we wanna stick each others' heads in a bucket and kick it around the yard. Where are you from? – no don't answer that it was sarcastic and rhetorical, sorry. I'm just a little on edge." Sherlock was amused at her colorful and contradictory metaphor. He suppressed a smirk and nodded before continuing,

"Yes, well, at any rate it's clear that _your_ mother would never do that, but this woman did. I don't think that was your real family you called."

"Uh, yeah it was. That was our home phone number I called, and it was _definitely_ my mother's voice I heard." She said testily.

"No, She may sound like your mother, but it's not her because that was not _your_ house you called. I think that your brother's machine did more than just transport you from one side of the Atlantic to the other. As impossible as it is, I think it transported you to a parallel universe." Sherlock concluded. There, He said it. It's the craziest thing he had ever heard of, but once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. It was impossible for Louise to have appeared in their flat as she did, yet here she was. What he thought was impossible was merely improbable – why can't the same be true for something just as unlikely? Truth, someone once said, is often stranger than fiction. Louise was gaping at him.

"You're right." She said. Sherlock raised an eyebrow. He didn't expect her to accept it this easily, most people tend to go in to denial.

" It is impossible." Louise finished while crossing her arms. So much for this being easy.

"Look," Sherlock said, "As I said before, you have nothing linking you to _this _world. There is absolutely _no _information on what you claim to be a famous author. There is _no_ information on yourself, and most importantly, you _materialized_ in the middle of my flat from out of God knows where. If not for that last piece of highly suggestive evidence, I would have dropped you off at the loony-bin." This girl was starting to get on his nerves, and now that he was sure he had indeed figured this puzzle out, he was ready to move on. Louise froze and looked him dead in the eye. He was completely serious, and she could tell he was tired of dealing with her. If what he said was true –and no matter how impossible it was, she just couldn't help but believe him – she would have nowhere to go if he kicked her out. Nowhere to go in a _parallel universe_, except maybe, as he so eloquently put it, the loony-bin.

"Okay, fine. Point taken. I'm sorry for being short with you, _please_ don't kick me out." She said with her best sad puppy eyes. Sherlock visibly stiffened. I guess even he couldn't stand up to someone who used that look on a daily basis to get out of trouble with an ex-army mom.

"Apology accepted." He muttered begrudgingly.

"So, we have the who, the what, the where, and the why out of the way. What now?" Louise asked. She didn't really want to impose on Sherlock or what was his name? Oh yes, John, how could she forget.

"What do you mean what now?" Sherlock asked her furrowing his brow. The mystery was over, case closed.

"Well, I can't stay here forever, not that you'd want me too, and I really do need to find a way back home. I'm sure my family is worried about me, and calling them obviously won't work. I know this isn't your problem, but I could use some help." Louise said as she stared, imploringly at Sherlock. Sherlock considered it for a moment, but decided he'd rather not get involved. As intriguing as inter dimensional space-time travel sounded, he preferred to deal in less abstract concepts. He was about to answer her when the door to the flat slammed open.

"What is it this time?" Sherlock asked as DI Lestrade burst into the flat. Apparently everyone visiting that day seemed to be making dramatic appearances.

"We need your help." Lestrade said.

"When don't you?" Sherlock replied.

"Look, are you coming or not?" Lestrade asked exasperatedly. Sherlock glanced at Louise.

"I'll be there in minute." Sherlock finally conceded.

"Right." Lestrade nodded as he left the flat to return to the crime scene.

"What was that about?" Louise asked as Sherlock jumped up and pulled his coat on. "Was he with the police? Where are you going?" She questioned him as she tossed something out of her purse and under the couch, and slipped on a random pair of shoes that were lying on the floor. Hey, she couldn't run around London barefoot. She followed him out of the flat. He hailed a taxi on the first try and nearly lost her, but Louise slid in after him and closed the door just as the driver pulled away from the curb. "Hello again." she said. Sherlock glared at her and looked out the window.

"My we are persistent aren't we?" He said shortly. Didn't she know how irritating this was? Louise shifted around and settled down on the seat in a more comfortable position. She might as well since she had no idea where they were going or how long the ride was going to be.

"Sorry," she said smiling tightly, "but I'm not very keen on being left alone in a strange world that I know nothing about. So, for now you'll just have to put up with me. Now, where are we going?"

"_l_ am going to investigate a crime scene." Sherlock said while shooting her his best glare in an attempt to get her to leave. It was definitely not working. She must be either really desperate or truly thick. Probably both.

"So, does that mean you're a detective? That other man looked like one" Louise continued on as though she wasn't getting a third degree burn from Sherlock's death glare.

"No, Lestrade is a Detective Inspector, but I am a _Consulting_ Detective, the only one in the world. I invented the job." Sherlock decided to answer her. Glaring at her without getting a reaction was too dull. Louise looked thoughtful for a moment before she grinned at him and said,

"Do me!"


	4. Ch3 Crime Doesn't Pay

**A/N: I own nothing. You might see a repeat of some of the lines exchange between Sherlock and John between Sherlock and Louise, but I liked them so much the first time, I had to use them again. I think they fit well here. I tried to explain as best as I could, and give enough clues without totally giving everything away. I hope you enjoy it!**

Crime Doesn't Pay

Louise looked thoughtful for a moment before she grinned at him and said,

"Do me!"

"I beg your pardon?" Sherlock said as he stared at her incredulously. He'd heard Americans were overly promiscuous, but she had seemed like a virg –

"Deduce me!" she said, interrupting his train of thought and still smiling like a kid in a candy store. Oh so that's what she meant. Well, that was startling, at least he wasn't wrong in what he assumed before.

"Very well." Sherlock conceded. At least it would help pass the time until they reached the crime scene. "You are clearly American and from the South judging by your accent. You are also an artist; there are calluses on you hands that are commonly seen on a painter's as well as clay stuck in the crevices of your ring, so you are also a potter. You look younger, but your clothing suggests college. I know you are a student because your coat has marks on it from the friction of your backpack rubbing against it. You were home when you were…before you came here, so you commute to a local college. You have ADHD and possibly a few other learning disabilities. In your purse is what sounds like two medicine bottles, so you're taking medication. Whatever it is, it must be working because you look perfectly healthy except for those bags under your eyes from lack of sleep, and the arthritis in your back. You are also a virgin." Sherlock threw the last one in for good measure in hopes it would ruffle her feathers and get her out of his hair. People never seemed to like it when others found out they were virgins. Louise just stared at him and blinked before breaking out into a genuine smile.

"That. Was. Awesome!" She gushed. " You really are a detective!"

"_Consulting_ detective, and that's not what people usually say." He corrected her, though he was a little surprised by her reaction. She was even more enthusiastic than John was. Louise furrowed her brow, puzzled.

"Well, what do they say?" She asked.

"Piss off." He replied smirking. Louise laughed.

"I'm sorry, but that's just funny." She said after she had calmed down. They were smiling at each other out of amusement when the cab pulled up to the crime scene.

"Just so you know, this _is_ a crime scene, and probably a gruesome one at that. Are you certain you want to insist on following me?" Sherlock asked as he got out of the cab, smirking back at her.

"Sorry, but you can't get rid of me that easily." Louise said as she climbed out of the cab and smirked right back.

As they approached the yellow tape surrounding the crime scene, a woman moved in to block their path.

"Hello, Freak." The woman said hostilely. Louise raised her eyebrows at the comment. That wasn't very nice. Wasn't Sherlock invited here?

"Sgt. Donnovan." Sherlock greeted the woman as he tried to lift the tape to enter the area. She moved again.

"What are you doing here?" Donnovan asked, though Louise was sure she knew perfectly well why they were there.

"I was invited." He said.

"By who?" She asked.

"Detective Lestrade." He answered.

"Why?" She said.

"Because I think He wants me to have a look." He said. Donnovan began to ask yet another annoying question when Louise interrupted her.

"Look," Louise snapped, "are you gonna let us in or not? You're just wasting everyone's valuable time by keeping us out here. Forensic evidence is not like Twinkies. Evidence actually _does_ have an expiration date." Sherlock had to suppress a smirk as Louise scolded Sgt. Donnovan. The look on her face was quite amusing.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Donnovan sputtered.

"I'm pretty sure I'm Louise Rouge." Louise answered.

"Well 'Louise Rouge' this is a crime scene. So, you're going to have to leave now." Donnovan told her.

"Actually she's with me." Sherlock said as he lifted the tape and walked over to where Lestrade was waiting for him. Louise raised her eyebrows in surprise. She was sure he'd use that as his chance to get rid of her, but since he didn't she hurried after him before he could change his mind.

"So you are straight?" Donnovan called after him. Louise looked back at her in confusion. Why did she think they were a couple? She reached Sherlock and Lestrade and noticed how completely bored Sherlock was when he said to Lestrade,

"Was this the _only_ crime in London today?" Lestrade looked miffed.

"Why do you say that? Besides this man was murdered, now I've asked for your help Sherlock. Can you tell me who did it or not?" Lestrade said to him.

"Anderson moved the body didn't he? I hate it when he does that." Sherlock said, totally unfazed by what the DI had just said to him. Lestrade sighed.

"Alright Anderson, bring it here." Lestrade called over to a man next to a gurney with a body bag on it.

"What, but I just moved it from out of the house!" Anderson whined.

"Just bring it here will you." Lestrade ordered. Then, Lestrade finally seemed to notice Louise.

"Who is this?" He asked Sherlock while pointing at Louise. "This isn't a bloody school field trip Sherlock, you can't bring civilians, much less children here!" He scolded Sherlock. Louise frowned and pulled what appeared to be a small sketchpad out of her purse.

"I'm not a kid." she said, "Apparently I'm twenty-one years old, and name is Louise Rouge."

"What do you mean apparently?" Lestrade rounded on her. "Why are you even here?"

"I said 'apparently' because I can't be totally sure, for some reason, I seem to missing my wallet. However, this picture," she began explaining as she open the book to a sketch of herself, "appears to be me, and on the back in what also appears to be my handwriting, is the information: self-portrait, Louise Rouge, 21 years old, 2011." She handed the book over to Lestrade so he could see for himself. "Apparently, I also have amnesia. I'm too nervous to be on my own right now, so Mr. Holmes let me tag along with him since I'm his client."

"You're his client?" Lestrade asked, looking up from the sketch. "If you're in trouble, why didn't you go to the police?" Louise blinked at him.

"Oh," she said looking between the two men, "I suppose that would have made sense, but I wasn't exactly looking for Mr. Holmes either Detective. The last thing I remember properly is wondering down Baker St. before I literally bumped into him. Once I explained my situation, he took me on. He said it was better than dying of boredom." Sherlock thought that was a rather good cover story. He might have been underestimating Louise. It was enough to give a plausible explanation for why she was there, with him, but still vague enough to keep people from questioning her too much if she acted odd. She could always claim it was a side-affect. Lestrade seemed to buy it.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Lestrade said to Louise, "but you really shouldn't be here. I especially don't think one of your first 'new' memories should be of a corpse."

"Too late." Louise replied, turning a little pale as Anderson rolled the gurney up next to her and Sherlock. The body bag was still open, revealing the body. Lestrade glared at Anderson for his insensitivity and poor timing.

"What? You told me to bring it." Anderson said. Louise squared her shoulders and breathed out slowly, collecting herself.

"It's alright," She said, "I'll be fine". She weakly smiled to try to reassure the DI. Then she brought her hand up to cover her mouth as she noticed there was something odd about the victim's neck. "Detective, you said this man was murdered?" she asked hesitantly. Lestrade placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Yes, but it's alright love, you can wait with Sgt. Donnovan over there if it upsets you." He said kindly.

"Oh, but she's not upset." Sherlock said. They both glanced towards him and away from the body. "Well, She is upset, but not as much as you think." Sherlock clarified. Lestrade looked between Louise and Sherlock.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Lestrade asked. Sherlock smirked slightly at Louise.

"Go on, say it." Sherlock said, prodding her to ask the question her could see brewing behind her eyes. Louise lowered her hand a way from her mouth and looked at DI Lestrade as she asked him,

"Is this really a murder?"

"What?" Anderson asked incredulously. "Of course it's a murder! He was strangled and hit over the head with a blunt object. What are you blind?"

"Don't speak out loud Anderson. You lower the IQ of the whole street." Sherlock chided him.

"So, wait you agree with Louise? You don't think it's a murder?" Lestrade turned to Sherlock confused. How was a young girl able to spot this so quickly? Sherlock turned to Louise.

"Tell me what you see, and why you don't think this man was murdered." Sherlock told her. Louise furrowed her brow, and looked up at him.

"Why? You obviously figured it out the minute you saw this place." Louise asked in confusion as she looked around the garage/workshop they had been led into.

"Humor me." Sherlock said to her. Louise frowned at him a little before looking around the room in greater detail.

"Any day now." Sherlock chided her.

"Give me a minute will you? Not all of us have brains that work at the speed of a particle collider!" Louise huffed at him. It was very dusty in the garage, and there were horizontal support beams all along the ceiling. They were all probably the dustiest things in the room, except for one. Part of it had been rubbed clean by something. There was a chair that had been dragged across the room. It was on its side close to the area under the clean beam. She looked back at the man's neck, and then back up at Sherlock.

"He was hanged?" She asked "It was suicide?" She was fairly certain that's what had happened, but she wanted clarification anyway. Sherlock smirked, almost smiled at her.

"I knew you were clever." he said

"What? Is that right Sherlock?" Lestrade asked him.

"Hmm, yes that is what the evidence suggests." Sherlock replied.

"If he committed suicide then why was he hit on the head?" Anderson questioned them. It was one thing to be outsmarted by a psychopath, but a little girl too?

"Louise." Sherlock prompted her. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"What again?" She asked. Sherlock just stared at her. "Fine then, first of all, the marks on his neck are all wrong. If he was strangled, they should be more horizontal on his neck, but they aren't. The marks look like they were made by a rope are angled up towards the back, like they would if someone were hanged. Also head wounds usually bleed a lot, don't they? This one has hardly any blood around it, so it was probably inflicted postmortem. Moving on to the room, this whole place is dusty. Those horizontal ceiling beams in particular. They look like they haven't been cleaned in years, but part of that one is," she said pointing to the clean section of the beam, "and there's a chair on the floor almost directly under it. It's been kicked over. I suppose it could have happened in a struggle, but nothing else appears to be out of place in here. So, the victim probably stood on the chair, tied a noose to the beam, kicked the chair away and hung himself." She concluded. "Why do you keep insisting I do this? Aren't you the one they're paying to solve this?" Louise asked Sherlock.

"Oh please, he's a psychopath! We don't pay him, he does it because he likes it!" Anderson scoffed at her. Louise blinked. She seemed to be doing that a lot today. She turned to Sherlock and said,

"Really? You struck me as more of a sociopath, a high functioning one." Sherlock actually laughed. It startled Anderson and caught Lestrade off-guard for a moment.

"Why are you laughing at me?" Louise asked confused.

"You haven't known me for more than an hour," Sherlock said to Louise before turning and addressing Anderson, "and she's an amnesiac, and she still knows more than you lot."

"Well if she really has amnesia, then how does she know enough to tell whether this is suicide or not?" He huffed.

"You know, I was kind of wondering that myself." Louise said innocently, though both she and Sherlock knew full and well that she does not in fact, have amnesia. Sherlock hid a smirk as he answered,

"It is not uncommon for people with amnesia to be unable to remember anything about themselves, but to still retain information about society around them. At least you seem to remember the important things." He raised an eyebrow at Louise. Louise crossed her arms and huffed at him in mock frustration.

"My identity _is_ important." She said, hiding a smile of her own.

"Yes, well sorry to interrupt, but if He wasn't murdered, then who made it look that way and why?" Lestrade asked them.

"Ah, now you're asking the _right_ questions." Sherlock told him as he turned to look expectantly at Louise.

"Don't look at me," She said, "I haven't gotten that far yet." Sherlock turned away from Louise again and towards Lestrade as he said to her,

"Yes, well, you have already far exceeded my expectations for you anyway. I suppose I'll take over from here." Louise frowned and turned toward Lestrade and whispered,

"Is that a nice way of saying he thought I was stupid?" Lestrade was about to answer her when Sherlock began explaining the rest of the crime.

"Louise was right about how the suicide was enacted," He stated, "Look at the man's clothes. They're expensive brands, but they're not recent, from about a year ago. I'm guessing that is when he came upon some financial trouble. The same can be said for the rest of the family." Louise looked around. She had been so focused on keeping up with Sherlock that she hadn't really paid to much attention to their surroundings until he had told her to. She finally noticed an ambulance that had a teenage girl, a boy that looked about two years older than her, about her brother's age, and their mother. They were all wearing nice but old clothes. They looked like they were grieving, and it might be that they had enough time to get over the shock of his death before they got there, but they didn't actually seem too shaken up or surprised by their father and husband's death. Sherlock continued, "I'm sure if you asked the family, assuming they were honest with you, they would tell you that this man had been acting strangely, possibly had a history of depression. At any rate, the recent financial trouble he was facing became too much pressure, and he sought suicide as a form of escape. One of the family members, probably the daughter, came to fetch him for supper only to find him hanging from the ceiling of the garage. She was understandably upset I'm sure, and ran to tell her mother and brother. I'm certain the man had taken out a life insurance policy on himself, but most companies will not pay if the subject commits suicide. Due to their desperate situation, the family needed all of the financial aid they could get. So, they worked together to cover up his suicide, and make it appear as though a burglar of some sort had attacked him. I'm sure they fed you some story about how a burglar broke in without them noticing. However, as Louise pointed out, there are clear signs that he did indeed commit suicide. In addition, there are no signs of forced entry, so there's no evidence to support the family's claim. You'll probably find the rope he used to hang himself and a bloody cricket bat in the garbage can out back." As Sherlock finished his deduction, Louise couldn't help but wonder when he had time to examine the family members and the garage door. She hadn't taken that long to catch up with him.

"That was amazing." Louise breathed. She knew from how he had deduced her earlier that he was a genius, but still.

"You do know you do that out loud, don't you?" Sherlock asked her.

"Oh, sorry." She told him.

"No, it's fine." he replied before addressing Lestrade. "If that's all, I think I'll be off then." Sherlock told him as he started to leave. Louise quickly smiled and nodded goodbye to Lestrade as she hurriedly followed Sherlock. He had already hailed a cab. How does he always get them on the first try? She wondered. They rode back to 221B in relative silence before Sherlock said,

"Oh, I never did ask you to clarify how much I got right about you." He told her. Louise smiled and said,

"Well, you were right, I am American, and I'm from the south, specifically New Orleans. I moved to Hammond with my family two years ago when I started college. I commute from home too. I am an artist, but I'm a graphic design major. Painting is just a hobby of mine, and I'm taking ceramics because I needed another art elective. I do have ADHD and other learning disabilities, like dyslexia. That's one of the things I'm being medicated for. I also have Bipolar II; I get sad, not mad, and I take medicine for that as well. I did suffer from depression for a while – chemical imbalance, not trauma – but it's in regression right now, so I'm okay. You were pretty much right about everything."

"Hmm, I didn't expect to be right about everything." Sherlock admitted, just as they pulled up in front of the flat. Sherlock paid the driver, and they went up to the flat together.

"So," Louise started cautiously, " can I crash with you guys for awhile, at least until I figure something else out?" Sherlock stopped to consider it for a moment. She was more intelligent than he gave her credit for, and John couldn't always come with him. He said he needed his job at the clinic, dull. She was also a lot less conspicuous to talk to than to walk around London carrying his skull. Before he could answer Louise, John finally came home from work. John was exhausted as he trudged up the stairs before opening the door and hanging up his coat on the rack next to the door. John jumped a little when he noticed Louise was still in their flat, sitting on the couch like everything was perfectly normal.

"Oh, hello," John said cautiously, although he was trying to sound casual, " still here then?" Louise smiled apologetically at him. She felt a little bad for upsetting him, even though it wasn't really her fault.

"Yeah, it looks like it was a one way trip, unfortunately." She replied, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you like that. I'm Louise Rouge." Louise stood and offered her hand to John. She remembered that she hadn't properly introduced herself to John yet, and her mother had always taught her to mind her manners. John looked hesitantly at her hand for a moment before brushing off his worries. He took her hand and smiled kindly as he said,

"John Watson, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise." Louise answered, relieved that John seemed to have accepted her for the moment. " I don't mean to impose, but I was just asking Sherlock if he knew of a place, I could stay. I'd prefer it if I could stay here, since I'm not sure they'll accept money from parallel universes anywhere here, but I'll understand if you say no." She explained to him. After all, it was his flat too. John paused when he heard the "parallel universe" comment, but he took it in stride. Louise guessed he must be used to strange things happening around him. John felt sorry for Louise, being alone in a strange world with nowhere to go. He looked at Sherlock, who seemed to be watching their exchange with a faint interest.

"She's staying, Sherlock." John told him. Louise raised her eyebrows in surprise. She could tell John was probably the more compassionate of the two, but this was more than she had hoped for. Now how would Sherlock react?

"Fine." Sherlock said as he lay down on the couch, and started putting what looked like nicotine patches on his arm. John was glad Sherlock had agreed, but he was a little surprised Sherlock had given in so easily.

"It's really alright?" John asked. He remembered earlier how he had worried that Sherlock might try to dissect the poor girl, and started interrogating him about it. Sherlock had the decency to at least look appalled at the idea. The two men began to have a heated discussion that Louise was sure would turn into an argument. She decided to intervene.

"Are you alright John?" She asked. "You look tired. Why don't you sit down, and I'll get you something to drink." She offered. John looked at her gratefully.

"Ah, thank you Louise. It was a rather long day. I think I'll take you up on that. Some tea would be lovely right now." He told her as he relaxed onto a chair next to the couch. He could get used to this. Louise asked Sherlock if he wanted any, but he just ignored her. She nodded and made her way to the kitchen and began making the tea. She managed to find a mug and the tea while avoiding some very suspicious looking experiments that were spread around the kitchen.

"Do you want anything in it she asked John?" She asked John.

"Just some milk, thanks." John replied. Louise opened the refrigerator door to get the milk, turned pale, and immediately slammed it shut again. She repeated this several times before John asked her what she was doing.

"What are you doing?" John asked her. Louise kept opening and closing the door as she answered him,

"I'm hoping if I do this enough times, eventually what I'm seeing in here will change." John immediately knew what was wrong.

"What's in there _now_?" He directed his question at Sherlock as he walked into the kitchen as he stood beside Louise and opened the fridge door himself. It was another bloody severed limb. At least it wasn't a head this time. Louise saw how annoyed and unsurprised John was, so she knew this must be a common occurrence. No wonder he had accepted her with such aplomb.

"I take it this happens often?" She said, raising an eyebrow at John.

"Yes, sorry about this. I keep telling him to stop putting things in with our food, but he never listens." John told her apologetically. Louise shook her head.

"It's alright, I'll be fine…eventually. I'm just not used to finding body parts in my fridge is all." She said lightly, trying to make light of the situation. "Besides," she said, "I'm assuming he managed to somehow legally obtain these things right? It's not like he goes out and collects them himself, if you know what I mean, right?" She joked. "Are you sure you still want the milk?" John was a bit surprised at how understanding she was. Most people would have assumed the worst when they found something like that. Although, she had managed to survive a whole day alone with Sherlock.

"Ah, no I think I'll pass on the milk for now, thanks." John said, smiling at her. It looks like Louise Rouge will fit in just fine here at 221B Baker St.


	5. Ch4 Business As Usual

**A/N: I own nothing, and this time I did borrow the case from another source. So, that's not mine either. Enjoy!**

Business As Usual

As Louise handed John his tea, he noticed her odd choice in footwear.

"Are those my shoes?" He asked her. Louise glanced down at her feet as though she had forgotten what she was wearing, and smiled bashfully at him as she took them off.

"Yeah, I'm sorry I took them with out asking," She said, "but I didn't have any shoes on … before, so I had to throw some on in a hurry when I followed Sherlock out of the flat."

"No, it's quite alright. Better than having you run around barefoot." John reassured her. Well that explains it John thought as he sat back down in his chair with his tea. Then he noticed something else that was out of place in the flat. "Is that a wallet under the couch?" He asked. Louise followed his gaze, and her eyes widened with recollection.

"Oh, yeah," she said, "That's mine actually. I tossed it under there before we left so I would have a reason to come back here if Sherlock tried to ditch me. I also didn't want to have any official ID or money on me since I don't technically exist in this world. For all I know, they way these things look here is different from how they look where I come from. They might accuse me of fraud, and it helps make my cover story more believable."

"Your what?" John asked her.

"Her cover story John," Sherlock said, still lying on the couch, " is that she has amnesia, and I took her case out of boredom. She met Lestrade earlier and told him she seemed to have misplaced her wallet. She used a sketch of a self-portrait she had drawn and conveniently labeled with information about herself in order to explain how she knew her name and age. It would be difficult to find her origins with such limited information. Although, it's obvious she is American, but without any definite proof or a passport, it would be rather difficult to deport her." John blinked. It seemed Louise and Sherlock had everything under control.

"That was rather quick thinking on your part." John told Louise. She smiled and said,

"Thanks John, I should probably get rid of it for good though. There's no telling how long I'll be here, and if I do manage to get home, I can always find a way to get replacements for what I lost. I'd rather not risk being exposed. They might put me in a mental hospital, or worse try to dissect me or something." Louise said, scrunching up her nose at the last thought. She picked up her wallet and started shredding anything that could ID her with a pair of scissors she found lying around before tossing it all in the trash. Now that she new she was safe and had a chance to relax; Louise realized how tired she was and yawned. John saw this and looked at the clock. It was rather late now so he suggested they have a light supper and go to bed. Louise's stomach growled when she realized she hadn't eaten anything for several hours. She and John rummaged through the kitchen cupboards before finally finding something edible. Sherlock refrained from eating, saying it slowed him down when he was thinking. Louise wasn't quite sure what to make of that since she always seemed to do worse when she was hungry or tired. After supper, they tossed around ideas for where Louise should sleep. Louise insisted she should sleep on the couch since she was just a freeloader. John insisted she should sleep somewhere more comfortable since she was a guest and offered his bed. The two of them went back and forth arguing over it until Sherlock had finally had enough and told Louise to take his bed since he never slept in it anyway. She would have protested, but she was too exhausted and didn't have any more energy left to argue. That being said, they bid each other good night, and went to bed.

Louise awoke the next morning to find that John was still asleep, and found that Sherlock had apparently not slept at all and had chosen instead to continue the experiment he had started before her arrival had interrupted him the other day.

"Morning." She mumbled as she stumbled into the kitchen to get herself some breakfast. She found some cereal and opened the fridge to get some milk before she remembered why that was a bad idea. Well, at least she was wide awake now. Louise decided to try some milk anyway since there didn't seem to be anything suspicious that was actually in or on the milk itself. She pulled out a small cup and poured a little milk in it to test it. Sherlock watched her as she sniffed the glass of milk before taking a sip. The milk smelled fine, but her face actually turned an interesting shade of green when she tasted it. It tasted like a cross between raw meat and chicken, cheese, and tomatoes. Louise had been both blessed and cursed with extremely acute taste buds, so she knew she was tasting the aroma of the contents of the fridge that had permeated the milk bottle. There really were cheese and tomatoes in the fridge, but no chicken or beef. Good God it was the severed arm she was tasting. Louise immediately rushed to the sink and started rinsing her mouth out, trying desperately not to be sick. John came out at that point and noticed the milk on the counter and Louise frantically trying to rinse her mouth out. Sherlock looked immensely amused.

"Are you alright?" John asked Louise. Louise nodded and said,

"Yeah, I'll be fine. Don't drink the milk." John stared at her. His brain was a little foggy from just waking up, but now he was able to put two and two together.

"You tried to _drink_ it?" John asked her in disbelief.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." Louise said while taking a seat at the kitchen table with her_ dry_ cereal. "I hate eating cereal with out milk, and it looked okay and smelled okay. It did _not_ taste okay." She still looked slightly green in the face.

"What did it taste like?" Sherlock asked her. John stared at Sherlock. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? Wasn't tasting it bad enough without having to think about it again? Louise continued to eat her cereal, but she answered Sherlock in between spoonfuls.

"It tasted like cheese, tomatoes, and a combination of raw meat and chicken." She said grimacing. "I didn't mind the cheese and tomatoes. I have sensitive taste buds, so I'm used to being able to taste the contents of our fridge in my milk. However, the only thing we have in there that even remotely resembles meat, is the severed arm." Louise had to stop eating as she said it, completely put off any thought of food now.

"Hmm, interesting," Sherlock said, "that must be what human flesh tastes like then." Louise and John's heads both snapped over to Sherlock. John had suddenly lost his appetite too.

"Can we _not_ talk about this?" Louise snapped at him. John couldn't agree more.

"Why?" Sherlock asked, clearly unperturbed. He found this fascinating. What else could she taste? Maybe he could test her by putting other things in the fridge and removing them before she could see to determine just how accurate she was. John could see the wheels turning in Sherlock's head, and he had a feeling that he knew just what he was thinking.

"Don't even think it." John said darkly, "I have to eat out of that fridge too you know." Sherlock smiled.

"Why John, I have no idea what you are talking about." Sherlock said innocently. Louise had feeling he knew exactly what John was talking about, and the innocent tone of voice he was using was obviously fake. She also had a feeling she wouldn't be drinking or eating anything out of the fridge again for a good while. Louise liked John, Sherlock too, despite himself, but she needed some fresh air after this particular experience.

"I think I'll go visit detective Lestrade." Louise said out loud. Both men stared at her.

"Why?" John asked. "How do you know Lestrade?"

"Because the little outing I went on with Sherlock, the one I mentioned yesterday, was to a crime scene, and he was the one in charge." Louise explained, "I should probably at least_ try_ to look like I'm sincerely trying to figure out who am. I can ask Lestrade to see if anyone filed a missing persons report, though we all know it will come up empty."

"You already told him I was looking into it." Sherlock pointed out.

"Yes, but unless you have connections, you probably wouldn't be able to find out what Lestrade could. If he asks me what I'm doing about it, what should I say? That I'm planning on posting flyers all over London saying: Found, one 21 year old girl, blond, hazel eyes, enjoys long walks on the beach, answers to the name Louise?" She asked raising an eyebrow. John smiled at the amusing images that conjured up. Sherlock's lips twitched in amusement.

"Well, there's always that." He replied.

The three of them stood in front of Scotland Yard. Louise was almost out the door, when she realized she had no money for a cab, and she didn't want to somehow end up stranded in some random part of a strange city if something went wrong. She also needed shoes. John had offered to go with her and help her get shoes since he had off that day, and Sherlock insisted on coming too because he was bored. John didn't argue with him on that since the last time he left Sherlock alone on his own, bored, he had shot a few holes in their wall. As they entered the Yard, A familiar voice called out to them.

"What are you doing here, Freak? You usually wait until there's an actual crime before you show up." Sgt. Donnovan said. "Hello, John" she greeted him tightly, though admittedly a bit more nicely. She just glared at Louise. "Still here are you?" Sgt. Donnovan shot at her. Louise smiled back tightly. She probably hadn't made the best impression by being so rude to the sergeant the first time they met, but come on, it wasn't that bad.

"Nice to see you again too, Sgt. Donnovan." Louise said. "Could you tell me where I can find out if anyone filed a missing persons report on me?" Sgt. Donnovan stared at her.

"Now why would you want to do that?" She asked. Apparently neither Anderson, nor Lestrade had told her Louise had "amnesia." Louise sighed.

"Because I have amnesia. All I know is my name, my age, and that I have an American accent. It's not a lot to go on, so I thought maybe if I could find out who is looking for me, then maybe I'll be able to find out more about who I am." Louise said patiently.

"I know." Sgt. Donnovan said, "What makes you think anyone is looking for you?" Oh. So she did know, she was just a bitch. Louise didn't feel so bad now. She frowned and was about to say something they'd both regret when she spotted Lestrade. Louise smiled and waved at him. He saw her and started to make his way toward them.

"Hello again, Miss Rouge." Lestrade greeted her. "Sherlock, John." he nodded at the two men, "What brings you here today?"

"She's not very patient." Sherlock said looking at Louise. Louise frowned at him.

"Well, how would you feel?" Louise said hotly. John hid a smile. He thought Louise was in fact, incredibly patient. She just got riled up easily. Louise smiled politely at Lestrade.

"I was hoping you might be able to help me find out if anyone was searching for me. As, I told you yesterday, we don't have much to go on. Sherlock's brilliant, but even he has his limits." Louise told him. Sherlock wasn't sure how he felt about that "limits" comment. Lestrade nodded in understanding.

"I'll see what I can do." he assured Louise. Louise smiled gratefully at him. It might have been a wild goose chase, but the man was being very gracious about it.

"What if no one's looking for you?" Donnovan said, crossing her arms. Louise groaned internally. She had almost managed to forget she was there. John and Lestrade frowned at Donnovan. Sherlock was quietly observing the whole exchange.

"I think I'd still like to know. If there really is no one who cares enough to look for me, maybe I'm better off without them." Louise replied, shrugging a little sadly. She had just remembered the conversation with her "mother" from this world.

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find something." Lestrade tried to reassure her. Louise smiled at him.

"Thank you Sir." Louise said.

"Yes, well now that we have that out of the way, let's leave. Shall we." Sherlock said as he briskly started to walk out of the Yard. John nodded goodbye to Lestrade, and Louise smiled and waved one last time as they followed Sherlock out. None of them made it very far, because they stopped as Anderson pushed past them, holding several evidence bags containing what looked like hand written letters.

"We just got a call from the owner of that popular new restaurant, Chez Noir. He sent us these. They're threats he received, and he wants you to go the restaurant so he can talk to you now." Anderson said quickly.

"Right now?" Lestrade asked.

"Yes, right now." Anderson answered him. Just then, Sherlock's phone alerted him he had a new message. Sherlock pulled his phone out and glanced at it before placing it back in his pocket.

"Looks like we're going too." Sherlock said to John and Louise as he walked outside and hailed a cab. Louise and John looked at each other as they followed him.

"What just happened?" She asked as they climbed into the cab.

"I got a text from the owner of that same restaurant requesting my presence." Sherlock said as he started searching for something on his phone. Louise wondered how the owner knew Sherlock's number when John supplied her with an answer.

"The number's on his website." John told her after seeing her slight confusion.

"Oh." She said. Sherlock put his phone away after he finished whatever it was he was doing with it. "Why did he ask both you _and_ Lestrade to come? He already sent the letters to the police." Louise wondered out loud.

"Well, his restaurant's just been threatened. He's probably just nervous." John told her.

"But isn't that a bit overkill?" Louise asked. "Anderson was holding three letters. Were they all sent the same day?"

"Oh good, so you noticed." Sherlock said. John blinked.

"Noticed what?" John asked as the cab pulled up in front of Chez Noir. Sherlock got out of the cab and swept towards the restaurant, dramatic as usual. John sent Louise a questioning look as he paid the cab driver, and they both followed Sherlock. Louise shrugged.

"I'm not really sure," she said, "I feel like something's odd about this whole thing, but I don't know what it is." They were greeted by a waiter, who escorted them to the employees only part of the restaurant and led them through the kitchen. There were lots of chefs hard at work, preparing for the restaurant's opening. Off to the side of the kitchen, there was a smaller closed-off space that had what looked like a window without panes for an opening to give the person in it a view of the kitchen. There was a man standing in there, but steam from the pots that were on the stove in front of him obscured her view of him. The waiter noticed her looking and informed her that it was Chef Pierre's private kitchen. Louise glanced at John and Sherlock, who had also noticed it. They reached the owner's office, and the waiter held the door open for them before going back to work. Inside the room, was the owner, DI Lestrade, and Sgt. Donnovan.

"Why hello, you must be Sherlock Holmes," the owner greeted, smiling at Sherlock, "and you must be his assistants." He said looking over Louise and John. "My dear, shouldn't you have been in school by now?" the owner asked Louise. Donnovan snickered. Louise smiled tightly. Why did everyone assume she was still in high school? She didn't look _that_ young.

"I'm twenty-one years old, Sir." She patiently told the man. He looked a little too surprised at that.

"Oh forgive me, my dear. You just look so young." He apologized. At least he sounded like he meant it.

"I'm assuming you called us here for a reason, Mr. Blight." Sherlock stated. The owner, whose name was apparently Mr. Blight, turned his attention back to Sherlock and the detectives.

"Oh, yes quite. Sorry about that." Mr. Blight said as he resumed his seat at his desk. John and Louise took a seat on one of the small couches he had in his office. Sherlock remained standing. "As I was just telling DI Lestrade and Sgt. Donnovan here, my restaurant has received several threats over the past few days.

"Yes, we've seen the notes." Lestrade said. We haven't Louise thought. Not really.

"We haven't." said John, "Do you have a copy we could see?"

"No need. I got a good look at the Yard." Sherlock said. Well, that makes one of us Louise thought indignantly. She was a little miffed he was leaving her and John out of the loop. Mr. Blight looked surprised. Which was a little strange, considering he should have been more concerned about his restaurant. A loud bang and a sudden commotion was heard from the kitchen. They all stood as a chef ran into the office.

"Mr. Blight, something's happened to Chef Pierre!" He cried in distress.

"No! Not Pierre!" Mr. Blight cried as he ran to the kitchen. They all followed after the man, and were shocked at what they saw. Chef Pierre was lying on the floor of his personal kitchen with the back of his head bashed in.


	6. Ch5 The Ripped Tomato

**A/N: Hey ya'll! Like I said before I don't own anything, and any "Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro" fans out there might recognize where I got the idea for this murder from. It's a mystery anime, and this is loosely based off of one of the episodes. I'm coming down with something, and I'm a bit brain-dead at the moment, so I'm sorry for my lack of creativity and any mistakes I make. I hope you like it! Let me know if I misspell anything, particularly the British slang, and sorry about the lame titles.**

The Ripped Tomato

Chef Pierre was lying on the floor of his personal kitchen with the back of his head bashed in. Louise watched as John and Sherlock put on gloves and examined the body while Lestrade called for backup, and Donnovan started interviewing the witnesses. Which were pretty much all the chefs in the kitchen at the time. The witnesses all said the same thing. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Chef Pierre had arrived early before everyone else so he could get a head start at cooking the soup of the day, like always. They didn't hear or see anything. There was a door that lead to the outside of the restaurant in the private kitchen, but Chef Pierre always kept it locked. Louise decided to turn her attention back to Sherlock and John.

"This head wound was inflicted by a blunt object, probably cylindrical in shape. It's odd, but if I didn't know any better, judging by the body's progression in to the state of rigor mortis, I'd say this man had to have died at least an hour ago." John told Sherlock.

"Yes, it would appear so." Sherlock replied as he looked around the kitchen. The pots of tomato soup the chef had been working on had been knocked over when he fell into them on his way down. The fans that should have been venting the steam away from the kitchen were off. Shouldn't they be on to keep the steam from building up too much in the kitchen? They were on before, and the door was closed. Unlocked, but closed. Louise followed his gaze and noticed something strange. What was a _raw_ tomato doing on the floor? It had an unnatural cut in it that made it look as though it had been ripped. She looked at Sherlock and asked,

"Why is there a raw tomato, and why does it look like that? Did you know the chef usually locks that door?" Sherlock's lips twitched upwards a bit, and he was about to answer her, when he was so rudely interrupted.

"Of course there's a tomato on the floor. He was cooking tomatoes." Someone sneered. Oh goody, Anderson was here. "Get out of here, you're contaminating the crime scene." He ordered them. Well, he tried to. Louise thought it sounded like more of a whine than an order.

"That's fine, I have what I need." Sherlock replied as he stepped out of the kitchen, followed by John and Louise. Louise was starting to feel like a baby duck tailing along behind momma.

"Really, you figured it out already?" John asked. Sherlock didn't answer as he approached Lestrade.

"You might want to run tests on that." Sherlock said while pointing to a dish that had been sitting out on the counter, forgotten in all the commotion. Lestrade looked at him funny.

"Why, it's just a plate of food?" Lestrade asked him.

"Is it?" Sherlock asked. Mr. Blight over heard them, and rounded on Sherlock.

"Why are you harassing me? My partner and friend, Pierre, was just murdered, and you want to question our cuisine?" Blight shouted at Sherlock. Sherlock was unfazed.

"Yes, actually, I do." Sherlock said, "You called us because your restaurant was threatened, but of the three letters, only one of them had different handwriting. This one also had a slightly different message, rather than threatening to actually inflict harm on the restaurant, it was more of a warning, 'this restaurant shouldn't exist' and 'stop what you're doing now'. Why is that? What were you doing that warranted threats like that? I looked up this restaurant on the way here. I looked up your history as well." Mr. Blight's eye twitched when he heard that. "This is not your first restaurant. In fact, two of your other restaurants have been accused of drugging the foods they served. You slipped steroids into the meals of several athletes."

"That was never proven!" Mr. Blight interrupted Sherlock. That was an odd choice of words Louise and John thought. Shouldn't he have said it wasn't true?

"Yes, but while it was never proven, the stigma was still there." Sherlock continued, "Chef Pierre was with you at those other restaurants as well. He was also the one who prepared the meals in question."

"So that's why the restaurant was threatened and why Chef Pierre was targeted?" John asked, "Because someone suspected foul play?" Louise was still wondering how Sherlock had managed to catch so many details from the letters when he only saw them once, and Anderson was holding them.

"Yes, and no." Sherlock said. "I noticed one of Chef Pierre's cook books was left out. There were handwritten notes he had added in the margins. His handwriting is the same as the handwriting on the one note that was different. He sent the note to the restaurant."

"Why? What could he possibly gain from that?" Lestrade asked.

"Maybe the food _was_ drugged. Maybe he didn't want to do it any more." Louise said. They all looked at her.

"You do know you said that out loud, right?" John asked her. Louise raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"Really? I have got to stop doing that." She said.

"You weren't wrong." Sherlock told her. "That's actually what I was about to say."

"So, the food _was_ drugged?" John asked.

"Yes that would be a proper motive for Chef Pierre to send that letter." Sherlock replied, "He had probably hoped it would make Mr. Blight nervous enough to stop pressuring him into drugging the food. If this restaurant closed down too, well, who would want to hire such a suspicious chef? I doubt even Mr. Blight could bribe enough people to let him open yet another shady restaurant with three strikes against him." Sherlock turned to Mr. Blight as he said, "You killed him. You recognized his handwriting. So, you confronted him, but he wouldn't back down. Maybe even threatened to go to the police. So, you wrote the additional threat letters yourself to make the situation seem more urgent and sent them to the police. You knew he came in before everyone else, every morning, and you took advantage of that. You hit him over the head with a blunt object, hard enough to kill him. Then, you dragged him back inside and propped him up to make it appear as though he was standing. You used a frozen tomato with two pieces of rope looped through holes on each side of the tomato, and tied the other ends to the ventilation fans. You turned the fans on to blow the steam from the pots out of the kitchen, and it also served to obscure the casual passerby's view of him. To others, it would appear as though the chef was watching the soups he was working on. With the set up complete, you decided to call DI Lestrade and myself, and had us come here in person. What better witnesses to assure your innocence than a member of law enforcement and a fairly well known detective? While we talked, you were buying time for the tomato to thaw. As the tomato began to thaw, the chef's weight became too much for it to handle, and it ripped apart. This is when the body fell and knocked over all of the pots containing the tomato soup. It should have camouflaged your tomato, but Louise and I both noticed it. The ropes, no longer being pulled down by any weight, were then pulled up and out of view as they wound themselves about the moving fan blades. This jammed the blades, causing them to stop. You had left the outside door unlocked, hoping to blame it on a trespasser, but since the chef always locked the door; it is unlikely he would have left it unlocked today. The door should have been locked, and if someone did try to attack the chef, there would have been signs of forced entry. John examined the body, and there is sufficient evidence that proves the man was killed, at least an hour before we arrived." Sherlock finished his long explanation as Lestrade walked back into the room holding two ropes. When had he left?

"I've found them, just as you said." Lestrade said as he put the ropes into an evidence bag. "There's also tomato juice on them." he added. Mr. blight blanched as he saw all the evidence coming together against him.

"That doesn't prove anything. The only thing you have on me is circumstantial evidence. It will never hold up in court." Blight told them as he inched towards the door.

"The murderer," Sherlock said, "Would have had little time to hide the murder weapon before the others showed up for work." Sherlock began moving produce boxes about; searching for a place the weapon could be hidden. He opened the previously blocked drawer, and motioned to Lestrade to come over since he wasn't wearing gloves anymore.

"There's your murder weapon." Sherlock told him as he pointed to a rolling pin that had a speck of blood on it. Lestrade pulled it out of the drawer and turned it over. It was covered in blood. "I'm certain you'll find Mr. Blight's finger prints all over it." Sherlock told Lestrade. That was the breaking point for Blight. He took off like a shot towards the exit, but John tackled the man to the floor. He tried to punch John, but Louise grabbed a nearby frying pan and bonked him on the head.

"Are you quite finished?" Sherlock asked Blight coldly as Sgt. Donnovan came over and handcuffed him.

"You okay John?" Louise asked as she set the frying pan down. She was trying to calm herself down as she recovered from the rush of adrenaline she had just experienced.

"Nice reflexes." John told her as he tried to catch his breath. Louise shrugged.

"I have my days." She said smiling. Sherlock walked over to the two of them.

"You're alright." Sherlock stated. It wasn't a question, more of an observation, but Louise and John could tell he was slightly concerned.

"We're fine," John assured him, " a bit out of breath, but otherwise fine." Louise nodded in agreement. Sherlock nodded before smirking at Louise.

"A frying pan, _really_?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Oh shut up!" Louise told him as she lightly punched him in the arm. Her face was flushed slightly from embarrassment as she realized she must have been watching too many Tom & Jerry cartoons. I mean a _frying pan_? I guess that's what you get when you grow up watching easily imitatable violence. Well, at least John was okay.

"Are all Americans this violent?" Sherlock asked John.

"Yes, but all the ones I met were soldiers, so I'm not sure that counts." John answered back while smiling at Louise.

"Haha, very funny fellas." Louise told them sarcastically as she rolled her eyes at them.

Despite starting the day with a violent murder for breakfast, it was a rather beautiful day outside, so the trio decided to take a walk instead of hailing a taxi. As they were walking away from the restaurant, Louise couldn't help but feel as though she was being watched. She turned around to look, but no one was there.

"Something wrong?" John asked her. Neither he nor Sherlock seemed to be bothered by it.

"No, not really. I must have been imagining things." She told him. They stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Sherlock told her something about how you could tell they were good by looking at the door handles. She was a bit skeptical about that, but she knew better than to question him by now. She always liked reading the fortune cookies. She told the two men about the time she got a really ironic one. It had said "You are heading in the right direction," but she was so busy reading it, she walked into a pole. John got a good laugh out of that, and Sherlock smirked at her and made a comment about her being a klutz. She decided to retaliate by flicking a cookie crumb at him. Not very mature, but it made her feel better. At least until she saw her current fortune, "You are being watched." Well, that won't make a person feel paranoid at all, will it? Still, they managed to make it back to 221B Baker St. without stumbling upon any more crime scenes. Sherlock might have preferred it if they had, but Louise liked her lunch just where it was, in her stomach. She still wasn't quite used to seeing real dead bodies. Watching crime shows was one thing, but seeing the real thing in person was a whole 'nother enchilada as she liked to put it. As they were about to enter the flat, an older lady opened the door.

"Why, hello Sherlock, John." Mrs. Hudson greeted, smiling at them. "And who is this young lady? It's a pleasure to meet you love." She said as she ushered them inside and out of the nippy weather. It had started to get colder after lunchtime.

"This is Miss Louise Rouge." John said, smiling as he introduced her. John was quickly becoming rather attached to Louise, in a brotherly kind of way. She was much easier to get along with than Harry. "Louise, this is Mrs. Hudson, our landlady." He explained.

"It's nice to meet you too Mrs. Hudson. Please, call me Louise." She told the older lady as she smiled warmly at her. Mrs. Hudson reminded her a little of her recently deceased grandma, but she wouldn't tell her that. Most women didn't appreciate being made to feel old.

"It looks like she'll be staying with us for a while." Sherlock told Mrs. Hudson. "She has amnesia and nowhere else to go." He knew Mrs. Hudson had a soft spot for poor, unfortunate souls.

"Oh, you poor thing!" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed. "Well of course you can stay here. Look at you, face all pink from the cold. You just warm yourself up while I fix you a nice hot cuppa, but just this once dear, I'm not your house keeper." Louise smiled gratefully. She was relieved the landlady was so accepting of a freeloader.

"Thank you Mrs. Hudson. Something hot to drink would be fantastic right now." She said. Being from such a warm place, Louise never did mix well with the cold.

After chatting with Mrs. Hudson for a bit, the older lady left to take care of whatever errand she had been about to run before they came home. Louise had to admit she was a little surprised at how quickly she had come to think of the flat as her new home. A feeling of homesickness washed over her, and she began to worry about how her family was reacting to her disappearance. She hoped they weren't spending too much money looking for her. They lived comfortably, but college was expensive. Her scholarships covered all of her expenses, but Joseph's graduate school cost quite a bit more than hers did, and he still needed to get his Masters. Well, there was no point in dwelling on things she couldn't change, so she decided to distract herself. She noticed a book titled _London A to Z_. That could be useful, seeing as she knew absolutely nothing about London.

"You mind if I read this?" She asked the two men as she pulled the book off the shelf.

"Not at all." Sherlock told her as he removed the severed arm from the fridge and began examining the effect that refrigeration over a period of 48 hours had on it.

"Help yourself." John told her. Louise smiled a thanks at both of them as she began reading the book, or at least she tried to.

"Why is almost everything in here in German?" she asked, confused.

"It's in what?" John asked, looking just as confused. They had had the book since "The Blind Banker" case, but he had never actually read the book since he already knew how to get about London.

"That's because the man I borrowed it from was a German tourist. You don't know German?" Sherlock goaded her without looking up from his experiment. He was now examining something with the microscope.

"Um, _no_." Louise said, " I speak a little French, Spanish, Italian, and some Japanese. She had watched _a lot _of anime over the years. I only know a few basic phrases in German, like 'guten tag'." Louise sighed and placed the book back on the shelf. So much for that she thought as she slumped back onto the couch and stared out the window. John got a call from Sarah. His girlfriend and coworker, he explained to Louise. One of the other doctors had to leave due to a family emergency, and she had called John to ask him to come in. So, being the responsible man he is, John left. After a while of sitting in silence while Sherlock continued to work on the severed arm, Louise decided she couldn't take it any longer. She was almost just as bad at tolerating boredom as Sherlock was, almost.

"Maybe I should go get a copy of that book in English." She said, "I don't think it's a good idea for me to be so ignorant about the place I'm living." Sherlock didn't answer her. Well fine then. She checked her pockets and counted how much money she had. John had lent her some in case of emergencies. She kind of wished she hadn't thrown her wallet out with it contents now, because she had nothing to keep the money in. It looked like she had enough for the cab fare and a book.

"Get some yogurt while you're out. Take my card." Sherlock told her as he held his credit card out to her, still not looking away from the microscope. Louise thought about asking why he wanted yogurt, but she decided she was probably better off not knowing.

"Okay." She said as she took his card, "I'll see you later then." And so, Louise left on her first solo trip to the super market in London. She should've known it wouldn't be that easy.


	7. Ch6 Yogurt & Umbrella Wielding Stalkers

**A/N: I don't own anything. Thanks for reading! Enjoy!**

Yogurt And Umbrella Wielding Stalkers

Louise managed to buy her book and the yogurt with relative ease. She almost had a row with the chip and pin machine, but after getting some help from the man behind her; she was able to finish up without anymore problems. She thanked the man and left the store. The supermarket wasn't really that far away, so Louise decided to try walking, even though it was starting to get dark. As she walked down the street, the pay phones began to ring. That was a little disconcerting, but she decided to try answering one anyway. Well, you know what they say: curiosity killed the cat.

"Good evening Miss Rouge." She heard a man's voice greet her on the other end of the phone. Well that wasn't creepy at all.

"Who is this?" Louise asked. She was glad she managed to keep her nervousness out of her voice. The man ignored her question.

"Do you see the camera on your right?" He asked her. She watched as it turned away from her. "Now the one to your left." He told her. That one turned away too. Yeah, this was definitely not going to end well for her. "There's a car pulling up in front of you now. Get in." he told her. Yeah right, if she got in, there was probably no getting out.

"And if I refuse?" she asked.

"Don't be difficult. I'd hate to have to force you." He told her. He didn't sound like he'd regret it all. Louise decided she might as well go along with it. If she didn't return home, at least John would look for her, and Sherlock knew the relative area she would've been in before she went missing.

"Alright, have it your way." She told him grudgingly as she hung up on the man.

As she entered the car, she noticed a woman was already sitting in it, texting.

"Um, hi," Louise said to the woman, "Any chance you'll let me go or tell me where we're going?" The woman glanced up from her phone to look at Louise before resuming her texting.

"No, not really." She answered her with what almost looked like a smile. Well, you can't blame a girl for trying Louise thought. The car drove on for a while before pulling into what looked like an abandoned warehouse. Well that wasn't ominous.

Louise was escorted from the car to stand in front of a man, probably the one on the phone earlier. He was on the portly side, holding an umbrella, and wearing the stereotypical three-piece suit that most Americans would associate with British snobs. All he needed was the hat and monocle. Not that everyone who dressed like that was a snob.

"Have a seat, Miss Rouge." The man told her, motioning to a chair with his umbrella. Louise clenched her jaw. She was so over this.

"I'd rather stand, thanks." She said shortly. She said she'd come. She didn't say she'd be pleasant about it. "You know, if you just wanted to talk we could have talked on the phone. I know I don't have a cell, but I was at a perfectly good payphone before you abducted me. The camera hacking was clever and all, very intimidating, but a little over the top. Don't you think?" She told him. Sarcasm was great defense mechanism. The man just laughed and leaned on his umbrella.

"When one needs to avoid the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discrete, hence this place. Why don't you sit down?" He told her.

"Because I don't want to." Louise told him defiantly. Really, couldn't he just get on with it?

"You don't seem very afraid." He observed.

"You don't seem very frightening. Your umbrella reminds me of a certain singing and dancing nanny with a magic umbrella, answers to the name Mary Poppins? Are you a relative of hers? Besides, panicking won't do me any good this late in the game." She replied.

"Ah, yes, the famed sarcasm of Americans. Sarcasm is by _far_ the lowest form of whit, don't you think? Now, what is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?" He said.

"This is about Sherlock?" she asked. "I barely know him. I only met him just the other day. That's hardly enough time to get to know a person very well."

"Yet, you've moved in with him, and now you're solving crimes together. He even covered for you, despite your questionable origins. I researched you. The only Louise Rouge that lawfully exists is the stillborn child of Mary and Edward Rouge from New Orleans, Louisiana. You are not who you say you are, and you are certainly not in England legally. Don't bother trying to deny it. Is it possible you're hoping to find a way to stay here more permanently, a marriage visa perhaps? Might we expect a happy announcement at the end of the week?" He said to her.

"I wouldn't marry someone for such a petty reason," She replied angrily, "and Sherlock didn't really strike me as the marrying type. Although, I'm pretty sure he'd marry his work if he could. What does it matter to you anyway? Who are you?" She asked.

"Just an interested party." He told her

"Why are you 'interested' in Sherlock? I'm guessing you're not exactly friends." She asked. There was something vaguely familiar about this man's calculating and penetrating stare. It reminded her of someone. She really needed to wrap this up though. The yogurt was going to turn at this rate.

"Oh we've met," he drolled. "How many friends do you think he has? I'm the closest thing to a friend a man like Sherlock Holmes is capable of having."

"And that is?" Louise prodded him.

"An enemy, in his mind certainly. If you were to ask him, he'd probably say his archenemy. He does love to be dramatic…"

"Well, thank God you're above all that." She retorted.

"Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?" he questioned her.

"I don't see how that's any of your business." Louise told him.

"Well I think it _is_." He insisted.

"It really _isn't_." she retorted. Really, did the man think he was Sherlock's mother or something? What a stalker.

"If you do decide to be more forthcoming, I'd be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way. You won't be able to get a job with such a questionable background. You could even afford your own place." He told her.

"In exchange for what?" Louise asked.

"Information," the man said almost excitedly, "nothing indiscrete mind you, nothing you'd feel uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he's up to." Louise honestly didn't think this guy had the right to bribe himself into Sherlock's business. Couldn't he just do this himself? He had just proven earlier to Louise that he had _vast_ resources.

"Why?" She asked.

"I worry about him, constantly." He told her.

"That's awfully nice of you, but I'm not interested." He did seem oddly concerned for Sherlock, despite how sinister this whole thing seemed. They way he looked at her was unnerving, almost like he was trying to unravel her deepest, darkest secrets. Good luck to him, seeing as how she didn't have any. Well, there was the being from another world thing.

""You're very loyal, very quickly," he observed. Louise didn't bother correcting him. It was true after all. "We'll see if you still feel that way once I mention a figure, and I would, for various reasons, have my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a… difficult… relationship," he reasoned. Oh. She suddenly remembered where she'd seen that stare.

"No, really why are you worried? Are you his big brother or something?" she asked. They didn't look a thing alike, but something about the way he had phrased his words and his concern over the possibility of her swindling Sherlock made her ask anyway. He blinked.

"He mentioned me? I didn't think he would tell anyone about me." he stated, genuinely surprised. Louise smirked. Score. It might have been a shot in the dark, but it was a good one.

"No, but you just did." She informed the man. He didn't look too pleased with his slip up, but he smiled slightly at her anyway.

"Well played 'Miss Rouge'." He said, "Now, about my offer?"

"I don't feel comfortable snitching on the man who's helping me, but since you're family, and you really are concerned…I'll consider it." she conceded. "Are we done? I think the yogurt's starting to turn." She said as she held up the grocery bag containing said yogurt.

"Fair enough." he murmured as Louise turned around to walk back to the car. "I should warn you though. To walk with Sherlock Holmes is to walk through the battlefield. You'd do well to tread cautiously my dear."

"I'll keep that in mind. Could I get a ride back to the flat?" she said, "I have absolutely no idea how to get back from here."

"You took your time." Sherlock told her as she walked into the flat. "John got worried and went to look for you." Bless you John Louise thought. It would have been nice if Sherlock had shown a little concern. He was just calmly sitting there reading a book, on the couch, but then, he wouldn't be Sherlock. It also made sense for one of them to stay behind incase she came back.

"Shouldn't we call him and let him know I'm okay then?" She asked. Poor John was running around London on a wild goose chase. Sherlock held his phone out to her, she took it and texted John to let him know she was okay and back at the flat. "I met your brother today." She told Sherlock as she handed his phone back to him. His face was almost comical.

"Mycroft actually told you who he was?" Sherlock asked her.

"Not exactly," she told him, "I sort of guessed, and he was so surprised, he confirmed it without meaning to." She shrugged. So, his name was Mycroft. Weird name. "You two look nothing alike though."

"Did he offer you money to spy on me?" He asked. He was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. This must happen a lot.

"I turned him down, but when I found out he was your brother and that his concern was genuine…I told him I'd think about it. I'll let you know what I decide though. You have a right to know when your privacy's being invaded." She told him.

"Oh good, you can go ahead and accept. We can split the fee, and you could use the money." He told her as he returned to his book.

"Your brother doesn't seem like the kind of person you want to play." She told him.

"No, but I'm sure he's expecting you tell me anyway, and I'm sure you were planning on telling him you got my permission too." He said absently while reading his book. Yeah that was exactly what she was going to do. She figured she might as well be upfront with a man who could probably have her crushed with a snap of his fingers.

"Well, okay then." she said as she slumped on to the couch next to Sherlock.

"Mind if I watch TV, I mean the tele?" she asked. The sound of someone running up the stairs was heard before John rushed into the room. He panted, trying to catch his breath as he searched the room for Louise. She was sitting on the couch with Sherlock, not a scratch on her. John was relieved, but a bit miffed he had gone on a wild goose chase.

"Good. You're alright then. Did you get lost?" John asked her as he relaxed into his chair. Louise felt bad for making John worry so much, but it was Mycroft's fault.

"I'm sorry I worried you," she told him, "but I wasn't lost. Mycroft decided he wanted to have a little chat with me." John nodded.

"He did the same thing to me when I first moved in with Sherlock, tried to bribe me to spy on him. Can you believe it?" He said.

"That's exactly what he did to Louise." Sherlock told him. "She almost flat out refused him like you did, but when she realized we were brothers, she told him she'd think it over. We're going to split the fee." Louise looked at John sheepishly and said,

"I hope you don't think any less of me, but I feel bad mooching off of you guys all the time, and Sherlock gave me permission so…"

"It's alright, I understand." John told her, " But how did you know they were brothers. They look nothing alike."

"I know," she said, "but they both have that same calculating stare when they're deducing you. It was a guess really, but it turned out to be a good one." Sherlock's phone rang, and he looked at the screen in disgust.

"It's for you." he said as he handed it to her.

"Hello?" she said as she answered it. It would've been nice if Sherlock told her who it was, but then again, judging by the look on Sherlock's face, it was probably Mycroft. They really didn't seem to get along.

"Hello, Miss Rouge." Mycroft greeted her. Wow, she was getting good at this. "Have you had enough time to think over my proposal?"

"Yes," she told him, " I discussed it with Sherlock actually, and he's given me permission to be your weasel." John and Sherlock looked a little amused at her choice of words, but hey, she called 'em as she saw 'em.

"Oh? You discussed it with him?" Mycroft asked her.

"Yes, but you probably already knew I would. You don't sound very surprised." She told him. Mycroft chuckled at that.

"You catch on rather quickly, don't you? Since I don't want to lose a valuable resource, I'll make sure you get the proper paper work to become a citizen here. The check will be in the mail, you should use it to buy yourself a phone. I'll expect to hear from you once a week. Goodbye Miss Rouge." Mycroft told her as he hung up. He could have at least waited until she said goodbye.

"Who was that?" asked john, "Mycroft?"

"Yes. Apparently I'm a 'valuable resource' now." She said, raising an eyebrow sarcastically, "He said he'd send me the necessary paper work I'd need in order to become a citizen, and the check's in the mail. At least I won't have to worry about being deported now, although, I don't know where they'd send me."

"Good to have that out of the way." Sherlock said, "I thought he would do something like that, but aren't you forgetting something Louise?" Louise looked at him. Was it possible that was part of his reason for going along with it? What did he mean she forgot something? She didn't forget – Oh. The yogurt. She quickly looked around the flat. Had she left it in the car? No, it was there by the door, good.

"I'm sorry," Louise said, handing both the yogurt and his card back to Sherlock, "I completely forgot. I hope it didn't spoil. It's been sitting out for a while now."

"Is that yogurt?" John asked.

"Yes, although I have no idea why he wanted it." Louise answered him as Sherlock opened it and sniffed it. He closed it and handed it back to her.

"It's fine, put it in the fridge." Sherlock told her. Louise took the yogurt and opened the fridge door to put it in. She slammed it shut again. This was becoming a habit. She exhaled before opening the fridge again and placing the yogurt in the fridge.

"Looks like it's take-out tonight John." Louise told him as she flopped back on to the couch.

"What?" John asked looking confused. Oh, right take-out was called something else here.

"Oh, sorry, I meant take-away. I'm not used to British slang yet." She told him.

No, I knew what you meant," John told her, "but I just bought more food on my way home. I put it in the fridge before I ran out to look for you."

"Not. Anymore." She told him giving a meaningful look at Sherlock. He's the only who could have possibly done _that_ in such a short amount of time. John looked between her and Sherlock, who appeared to be absorbed in his book. John went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. This was ridiculous. In addition to the yogurt Louise had just put in there, there was some strange substance covering all of the groceries he had just bought. This gave a whole new meaning to "bio-hazard".

"Sherlock!" John shouted.

"Yes, John?" Sherlock said, completely unfazed.

"_Why_ is our food covered in _God_ knows what?" John seethed. He was beyond tired and hungry after his search for Louise and fresh out of patience.

"It's just a little experiment." He told John as he turned to the next page in the book.

"Little?" Louise asked. "It looks like a Katrina fridge." Both men looked at her.

"A what?" John asked. Her odd statement caught him off guard, and managed to take some of the edge off his anger.

"A Katrina fridge." She said, blinking and looking between the two men, "It's what we called all of the fridges that had still been full of food when people left to evacuate for Hurricane Katrina. Without any power, the food went bad. I swear, the military could have saved a whole lot of money on biochemical warfare if they had just kept a few of those fridges. Most people just duct-taped them shut and threw them away. Didn't Katrina happen, you know…_here_…in 2005?"

"Oh, that Katrina," John said, "Yes, it did happen, but to be honest, I had forgotten all about it." That's right, he had forgotten. Louise would have been living there at the time.

"It's alright," Louise said, "it didn't affect you, it's only natural you'd forget. So, Know any good take-away places?"


	8. Ch7 Trouble In Paradise

Trouble In Paradise

Louise sighed as she stirred the cream into her coffee and stared absently out the window of the cozy little café she had decided to get breakfast at after waking up to discover that Sherlock had once again turned the flat's kitchen into his own private laboratory. She wouldn't have minded so much if this latest experiment of his hadn't resulted in so much smoke, since Sherlock apparently couldn't do a study on a gazillion different types of tobacco without also smoking each one so that he would be able to recognize them by their smell and taste, should the need to do so ever arise. Was he _trying_ to give himself smoker's lung? She was going to have to get John to sit him down so they could have a serious talk about this, because Sherlock obviously wasn't going to listen to her. He seemed completely oblivious to everyone and everything around him once he got started on something he found 'interesting'. Although, the brilliant detective didn't really seem to have noticed that had John left for his little trip to New Zealand yet, because she could have sworn she heard him talking to John last night, even though the good doctor had already been gone for nearly a week now…

Louise sighed again, suddenly feeling utterly mentally and physically exhausted. She had mostly gotten used to Sherlock's difficult personality and odd idiosyncrasies by now, but enough was enough! It seemed like ages since she first came to this world, but she still wasn't any closer to getting back home or at least finding a way to let her family know she was all right. She had enough stressing her out already without Sherlock trying to give the whole block secondhand smoke.

Maybe she should have taken John up on the invitation to go with him, after all, but she didn't want to impose on the old friend John was going to see, especially since Sarah was already going with him. It was nearly May, so they should be having a nice and sunny holiday in New Zealand, while she was stuck here in England, where the weather was always gloomy even on the best of days, compared to sunny Louisiana. She had figured the two of them might be able to have some alone time without her or Sherlock acting as a third wheel, but right now she was really starting to miss John. She could use his advice. As both a friend, and as a doctor.

'I don't know how much longer I can take this…' Louise thought, propping her heavy head up on one hand as she picked up the empty, orange Walgreen's pill bottle that used to contain the medicine she needed to help control her bipolar II. She needed a refill, _bad_. She had run out the day before John left for his trip, but she hadn't wanted to ruin his vacation by making him worry. After all, she had gotten new ID and fake background in the mail from Mycroft along with her first paycheck, so she figured that would be enough to be able to hire a professional shrink with…

Well, it turns out she thought wrong, because that sneaky umbrella-wielding penguin in a tweed suit had set it up—for only _God _knows why—so that in order for everything to actually get activated and start working for her, she would have to _marry Sherlock_. And, if she didn't, then she could kiss any chance of ever getting a visa or the UK's equivalent of a green card and whatever other paperwork she needed in order to be able to keep living here as a legal immigrant goodbye. He had at least given her time to think about it, but, all things considered, she wouldn't put it past him to have her deported if she declined.

I mean, sure she had started to develop a little crush on him (despite himself), and sure he was handsome, smart, and kind of sexy in that intellectual-badass way, especially with those beautiful, piercing, glasz eyes… but that didn't mean she was ready to make a serious lifetime commitment to the man! Louise had been brought up to be a good Catholic girl by her rather traditional parents, so she had been taught that the Sacrament of Marriage was not something you entered into lightly, because it was for life. It wasn't a game you could play and switch partners anytime you felt like it, like a game of musical chairs. True love was patient, kind, loyal, and faithful. It was for the long haul, faults and all.

Besides, she was pretty sure she already knew what Sherlock would have to say on the matter. Why would he want to marry an average girl like her, when he was brilliant, and all she had was baggage that was just waiting to blow up in her face, like a ticking time-bomb? Well, he did seem to have a somewhat dark and checkered past when it came to addictions to certain substances, but if anything, that was even more of a reason why this marriage was a bad idea. Shouldn't there be at least _one functioning_ adult in every relationship? Did Mycroft really expect her to take care of a problem child like Sherlock when she could barely even take care of herself without proper medication_!_?

Louise took a deep, calming breath. She was letting herself get too worked up. She could feel her eyes beginning to water, threatening to spill hot tears of frustration. She wanted off this manic rollercoaster more than anyone could ever know or even begin to understand, but not like this. Even if she could bring herself to marry for something as callous as a simple 'business transaction', there was no way she could do that to Sherlock. He might be a high-functioning sociopath who had problem understanding emotions and feeling empathy towards others, but he wasn't a heartless robot. What if he fell in love with someone else, someday?

The only things Louise knew for sure at this point were that she couldn't keep this up forever, and she officially hated Mycroft's guts.

—∞—

Meanwhile, back at 221B Baker St…

"Louise, I need a small, cylindrical container for this next stage. Find one for me, will you." Sherlock asked absent-mindedly, not even bothering to glance up until he realized he hadn't received an answer to his request. He hadn't even noticed that she had gone out. "Where is that girl?" Sherlock wondered aloud, frowning slightly in disapproval, as he pried himself away from the table long enough to find a suitable container himself. She had been acting rather peculiar as of late. She seemed to be experiencing some difficulties with focusing lately, and there was something… _off_ about her smile lately, as though it were slightly strained. It may not seem like much, but this was unnatural for the sunny, little blonde that he and John had gotten to know over the past month.

And then, it suddenly clicked into place.

"Oh!" Sherlock gasped in realization when he spotted the empty, orange medicine bottle just barely peeking out of all the rubbish. It seems Louise had already used up all of her Concerta, which would certainly explain why she might be having trouble concentrating, now that she had nothing to help rein in her ADHD, and judging by the date on the label, Louise should have finished off her supply for this about a week ago, depending on how much of the thirty day supply she had already taken before coming here. Which meant… she was probably on the verge of running out of her Lamictal as well, if she hadn't already. No wonder she was having trouble smiling. If someone with her type of Bipolar hit a bad low without any medication to help her, then it could be very dangerous for her. And to make matters worse, she had mentioned before that she had already gone through a bout of major depression.

This was not good, not good at all.

Why hadn't Louise gone to see a doctor yet to get new prescriptions written up? He had thought she would be sensible enough to at least manage that much on her own once Mycroft set up a new identity for her, but she obviously hadn't, or she wouldn't be exhibiting such classic symptoms of her conditions, although, he did have to admit she was doing rather well in concealing them, since it had taken even him this long to realize something was amiss. If only her purse were here… Then he might be able to find something more substantial to explain her illogical behavior, though, to be fair, people with mental illnesses weren't exactly known for being logical. To her credit, Louise really was much more clever than she realized. He estimated her IQ would probably be somewhere between the high 130's to low 140's, well above average. He really should have her tested once they straightened out her medication problem.

His thoughts were interrupted once again when he heard Louise's footsteps climbing slowly up the stairs, almost reluctantly. Sherlock glanced about the room and realized he probably should have at least cracked a window open to let some of the smoke vent, but it was a little late for that now. Stimulants, like nicotine, didn't exactly mix well with bipolar conditions.

Louise was unsurprised to find the air in the flat still thick with smoke, but at the moment she could care less. She was doing her best to hold it together long enough to get herself into the shower, where she could ride out her latest low and cry quietly in piece, with her tears safely camouflaged by the running water. She hated crying in front of other people, especially the people she cared about and wanted to worry the least. Unfortunately, one of the most recent additions to this list seemed to have other plans.

"Where were you?" Sherlock asked, stepping in front of her. It was fairly obvious where she had been, but he could tell she had her 'mask' on, so he wanted to stall for time, see if he could get her to take it off and admit she had a problem, before he had to forcefully deduce it out of her.

"Can't you tell just from looking?" She asked shortly, not really in the mood for this. She was sort of glad he had actually bothered to take notice of her absence, but right now he was in her way. Crying in front of others was bad enough, but Sherlock… Sherlock barely knew how to handle normal people. She couldn't imagine how awkward it would be for the both of them if she broke down here, right in front of him.

"I was trying to make conversation, but since you don't seem to be in the mood, perhaps I should just skip straight to the point." Sherlock replied, calmly, unfazed. The fact that the normally patient girl was being so short with him only proved further that something wasn't kosher with her. "How long have you been off your medication?"

Louise furrowed her brow slightly and considered lying for a moment, but then she remembered whom she was dealing with. She might as well get this over with. She was going to have to tell someone eventually anyway.

"Nearly a week." She finally replied, sighing heavily with resignation.

"A week?" Sherlock asked, raising an eyebrow. So, she really had been doing without for that long… She really had astounding self-control if she could keep up this act 24/7 for so long without cracking. Rather than an artist, perhaps she should put this talent to use and aspire to be an actress instead. "You must be nearly at your whit's end." He observed, allowing a hint of how impressed he was to show through. It wasn't everyday someone could surprise him like this. Louise was a rather interesting girl. He hardly ever felt _completely_ bored around her, which was saying a lot.

"Yeah, but I've been lucky so far, because I haven't hit a _serious_ low yet." Louise acknowledged reluctantly, giving him a slight, wan smile. "After all, I've had much worse. I went through this for a whole year before I finally broke down and told my parents I needed help. The worst part was not knowing _why_ it was happening, so it's not quite as bad this time around, since I at least know that much already."

"You were having suicidal thoughts." Sherlock stated, more than asked. Knowing what he did about Louise, the reason she had waited so long was most likely because she hadn't wanted to trouble anyone else, and if that were the case, then she would have continued to conceal her condition from those around her until the situation changed to where it would hurt those around her more if she didn't ask for help. Since she was raised by traditional Catholic parents, the condition most likely to bring about this change of heart would be suicidal thoughts, since it went against the teachings the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and would basically earn you a one-way ticket to Hell from their point of view. And, seeing how logical Louise is, coupled by her belief in the teachings of the Church, she would undoubtedly conclude that if Hell did indeed exist, then it would be far better to keep suffering on earth for the remainder of her lifespan than to end it all only to wind up being tortured in Hell for the rest of eternity. In order to avoid that, as well as saddling her family and friends with survivors' guilt for not seeing through her act and getting her help before she could attempt suicide, the best course of action would be to admit she needed help to them before she allowed herself, in a moment of weakness, to make a terrible mistake that she could not take back.

Louise nodded, a little surprised he had managed to jump to that conclusion so quickly, but then again this _was_ Sherlock she was dealing with.

"Yes, I was. But it was just _thoughts_ I never actually tried to hurt myself, because I realized it would just make things worse for me in the end." She replied, wanting to clarify that even if she felt hopeless, she didn't really have an actual death wish. She knew no sane person should.

"Good." Sherlock said simply, scanning her for any indication that she might be lying. She wasn't. He felt relieved to know that she was able to remain so rational, even in such a compromised state of mind. He wasn't entirely certain he would have been able to handle an irrational and openly manic Louise on his own. Even now he wasn't sure what he could do for her beyond trying to get her some professional help. How was one supposed to comfort someone in this situation?

"It's alright, Sherlock." Louise said suddenly, as though reading his mind. "I'm not going to do anything. I would have told one of ya'll sooner or later if you hadn't figured it out, because I'm not sure how much longer I can keep my 'everything's okay' mask on. I'm just having trouble working out a few details with your brother before I can start seeing a doctor and get treatment." She explained.

"Why would you need to consult Mycroft about this?" Sherlock asked, frowning. If all of her papers were in order, then she should be able to see a doctor anytime she wanted, unless…

"Yeah, about that…" Louise began hesitantly, wondering how much she should tell him. "It turns out he decided to tack on another condition for setting up my new background, identity, and so on..."

"And that would be…?" He prompted, wishing she would just get to the point.

"He… He said wants the two of us to get married...?" She finished rather reluctantly, bracing herself for whatever his reaction might be.

Sherlock just stared blankly at her with a 'does not compute' expression written all over his face.

"… What?" He asked dumbly, stunned. Whatever Sherlock had been expecting, it certainly hadn't been _that_. What on _earth _was Mycroft _thinking!_?


	9. Ch8 In Sickness And In Health

In Sickness And In Health

Sherlock tapped his fingers impatiently on the arm of his chair while he waited for Mycroft to pick up his phone. Normally, he preferred texting, but with the situation being what it was…

"I see she finally told you." Mycroft stated, finally deigning to answer. "I must admit, I didn't think she would last this long."

"Just what are you playing at, Mycroft?" Sherlock demanded, narrowing his eyes. "I thought you and Louise had already come to an agreement once she decided to report on me to you. Why would you, of all people, suddenly insist upon such a ridiculous condition?"

"Hn, I must admit, I had not planned on doing so, but then it occurred to me what a great opportunity Miss Rouge's appearance presented." Mycroft conceded boredly.

"Opportunity?" Sherlock inquired dubiously. What opportunity?

"Yes. You remember how Mummy was always so terribly worried that neither of us of ever would marry, do you not?" Mycroft asked tentatively. Sherlock stopped fidgeting in his chair.

_That's_ what this was about? Why should Mycroft suddenly be so concerned about _that_? As usual, Mycroft was not only trying to drag their mother into this, but he was clearly, once again, pushing something he found distasteful onto him to take care of instead.

"If it concerns you so much, then why don't _you_ go out and get married?" Sherlock retorted, frowning with irritation.

"Now, now. Don't protest too much. You wouldn't want to hurt the lady's feelings now, would you?" Mycroft chided him.

"Oh, please." Sherlock scoffed. If Mycroft really cared about Louise's feelings, he wouldn't be exploiting her greatest weakness like this just to get her to enter into a loveless marriage. Besides, Louise was currently in the shower, so there was no way she could hear them over the running water. "She doesn't want this marriage anymore than I do. Why do you think she held out for so long without telling me anything?"

"My, my. Are you really that slow?" Mycroft asked, shaking his head. "I can tell from the way she talks about you during her reports that she's beginning to fall for you, though I have no idea why. The more time she spends with you and John, the shorter her reports become, like she's trying to shield you from me. She is resisting this marriage _because_ she cares about you. When she first learned of this condition I had set for her, she called me up to argue that, in addition to being against her personal ethics, it wouldn't be fair to you. Don't you feel lucky, Sherlock, having someone who cares so much about you that they are willing to suffer for you?"

"This isn't funny, Mycroft." Sherlock told him in a dangerously low tone of voice, gritting his teeth. His older brother really could be most infuriating.

"Do you hear me laughing? I am being perfectly serious, Sherlock." Mycroft replied coolly. "You claim it would be a loveless marriage, but you clearly care for her enough to get angry when someone threatens her wellbeing, not to mention you actually bothered to _call_ me on your own for her sake. You have a reasonably attractive young woman who cares for you and can, for the most part, manage to keep up with you intellectually. Not only that, but in such a short amount of time, she has been able to grasp a deeper understanding of your character than most of the people who have known you for over five years. Her empathy and intuition when it comes to the hearts of others is quite impressive, and it is also something that both of us sorely lack. Not only can she understand you, but she can actually _accept _you in a way that others cannot bring themselves to. She knows how to reconcile the differences between her own hopes or expectations for someone and the reality of who and what they actually are without putting the blame for any inconsistencies on the person involved. She's probably the only person in the world who would be able to sustain a healthy relationship with someone like you, who possesses such a difficult personality. You should snatch her up before someone else does."

Although Sherlock hated to agree with Mycroft on anything, he could see his brother's point. If he were to marry anyone, Louise would indeed be an ideal candidate, but that was a rather large _if, _also…

"What do you mean 'before someone else snatches her up'?" He asked.

"I had a little chat with John before he left for New Zealand." Mycroft stated. "He said you appeared to have gotten a little jealous when Miss Rouge declined accompanying you on a case because she had already made prior arrangements with a new friend she made recently?"

"I was not jealous." Sherlock practically huffed. Why on earth would John think that? And when did he leave for New Zealand? Sherlock hadn't even noticed that the good doctor had left. Why did he have to find all of this out from _Mycroft_? "I simply could not understand why she would turn down solving such an interesting case to go to the cinema with someone else."

"With someone else?" Mycroft asked, sounding like the fat cat that ate the canary. "So, in other words, you would not have minded so much if she had wanted to go with you, correct?"

"…" Sherlock frowned; suddenly all too aware of just how conflicted he was feeling. Why had that irked him so? It's not like he had romantic feelings for Louise. Wasn't it just because he had wanted her to show a greater interest in the case? But, then again, since when did he care what other people thought? True, he may have come to value John's input as a doctor and human springboard, but with her it was… something else…

Mycroft took his silence as a 'yes'.

"You see? What are you going to do if some outsider takes her away? She can't stay with you forever." He pointed out. "If she married someone else, she would go live with them and start her own family. You might occasionally see or hear from her once in a while, but do you really think she would still have time to spare chasing clues and solving cases all over England with you? You might as well kiss your lovely new assistant goodbye now and save yourself the trouble later on. I can always have her sent back to America, if you'd like." He added for effect.

Sherlock's brow furrowed, and his frown deepened. He did not like the sound of that one bit. It might be selfish of him, but he didn't want to lose such an interesting person so soon, and if Mycroft had her deported to America, she would be completely on her own over there, since this wasn't really her world to begin with. At least here, she had him and John to depend on when she needed help. He didn't think it was safe to tell Mycroft the truth about her origins yet, and, even if he did, there was no guarantee that doing so would stop him. Sherlock sighed in defeat as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe it was partially the fault of some of that wretched 'sentiment' that Mycroft and John both seemed to think he was developing for her, but at the moment the intellectual wizard just couldn't see any way out of this, that wouldn't end badly for Louise, other than to bite the bullet and acquiesce to his brother's unreasonable request. Even though he really hated letting Mycroft get the better of him, right now it was more important to help Louise get the medication she needed before her condition took a nasty turn for the worst.

"Fine." Sherlock eventually conceded, though he wasn't terribly happy about it. "What do I have to do?"

—∞—

Louise wiped her eyes as she turned off the water, letting out one last sad sigh, before grabbing her towel so she could dry off. She felt a little better now that she had finally told someone and let herself cry for a bit. She was glad Sherlock had confronted her now, even though she still wasn't sure what she was going to do about Mycroft. She hung up her towel and pulled on the clean clothes she had laid for herself, finishing just barely in time before the door suddenly burst open, revealing a fully dressed Sherlock. She gaped at him incredulously. Can't he at least _knock _first? What if she had still been naked_!_?

"Ah, good. You're ready." He observed, nonplussed. "Come along, the car is already waiting for us downstairs."

"Wha?" Louise asked dumbly, blinking owlishly at him. "What car?"

"I'll explain on the way, just come with me." Sherlock urged her, taking her by the hand so he could quickly lead her out of the flat.

"Explain _what_, Sherlock? Where are we going? My hair is still wet!" She exclaimed, wondering what the big rush was. Did they get another case while she was in the shower?

"Where is Mrs. Hudson? Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock called out to the older woman as they made their way down the stairs.

"She's off visiting her sister, remember?" Louise reminded him, miffed that he kept ignoring her questions. It was hard being patient with Sherlock while she was busy fighting her own emotional rollercoaster.

"No matter. We'll figure something out." Sherlock replied absently as he herded her out onto the street and into an ominously familiar black car.

"Wait, isn't this…?"

"Mycroft's car? Yes, it is." Sherlock replied nonchalantly as he slid onto the seat next to her, and the car rolled away from the curb, joining with the rest of the traffic on the streets of London.

"Why are we in Mycroft's car? Did you call him while I was in the shower or something?" Louise asked curiously, wondering what in the name of William H. Macy was going on with these two brothers.

"We are going to the Register Office." Sherlock replied as he finally turned to look at her. "The two of us are going to get married today."

Louise's jaw dropped. …_What?_

"Shut the front door!" She shouted incredulously. She didn't know how things worked in the UK, but didn't they need a lot of paperwork like birth certificates and such? Hadn't Sherlock been against the idea of them getting married? "I thought you—"

"Calm down, and let me explain." Sherlock said patiently. He had been expecting a reaction like that. "While I disagree with Mycroft's methods, a marriage between the two of us would actually help keep you safe. If we are legally married, it will be easier for you to become a legal citizen of England, and make it much harder for anyone, including Mycroft, to deport you. Once the two of us are married, your reputation, as his sister-in-law, will be able to affect his as much as mine does, so even if he wanted to expose you as an illegal immigrant, he wouldn't be able to do so without damaging his own name."

"But—!"

"—Furthermore, we are only going through with the civil ceremony today. Our marriage will be legal in the eyes of the law, but since we aren't holding the religious ceremony yet, technically you won't have to worry about that whole 'sacrament of marriage' thing you Roman Catholics are so hung up on. This way, if in the future, you should ever decide you want to marry someone else, I can divorce you and make you a free woman without having to worry about getting a pesky annulment from the Church, which I understand are difficult to come by. Our relationship doesn't have to change just because we get married. We can continue living just as we are now. You don't have to finish 'consummating' this marriage with me any time soon, either. I don't mind waiting until you feel ready to do so on your own." He finished, glancing away from her as he said the last part.

Was it just her imagination, or did he seem to be a bit… embarrassed? Well, she couldn't really blame him. She could feel her own cheeks flushing a little at the thought of 'consummating', as Sherlock had so tactfully put it, anything with him. And it was obvious that he had put a lot of thought and consideration into this. He wasn't entering into this lightly. He had thought ahead for her, and she was immensely grateful to him for agreeing to take such a leap for her. Louise smiled her first real smile in days. It was small, but it was honest.

"You're a good man, Sherlock Holmes."


	10. Ch9 One Surprise After Another

One Surprise After Another

"Thanks, mate." John told his taxi driver and handed the man his cab fare in exchange for his luggage. The doctor smiled as he looked up at the familiar flat, grateful to see that 221B Baker St. was still in one piece after spending two weeks away from it. Well, at least on the outside. If Louise had also somehow managed to keep Sherlock from shooting up the walls again or blowing anything up, then he was definitely going to nominate that girl for sainthood. He started to reach out to open the door, when it suddenly swung open, revealing the bright and cheerful girl in question.

"Welcome back, John~!" She sang cheerfully, springing forth to give him a friendly welcoming hug. "How was New Zealand? Did you have fun?"

Well, at least he knew someone had missed him.

"Oh, yeah. You know how it is over there…" John said, smiling broadly. It was good to be home. "Lots of sun, lots of sheep…"

"Lots of long walks with Sarah without any third wheels?" Louise asked, waggling her eyebrows while giving him a playful nudge in the ribs. She was feeling _loads _better now that she was back on her meds and seeing a proper therapist again. She was really glad that John hadn't had to see her like that. He had enough to worry about already. This holiday seemed to have done him some good though. He looked well rested, and he finally had a bit of color in his face, thanks to that warm New Zealand sun.

John just grinned in response to her little quip.

"Oh, you." He said, nearly blushing, as he opened the door and they began carrying his bags inside and up to the flat. Every now and then, she could really catch him off guard with that frank directness of hers. "So, how were things on your end? Did Sherlock behave himself, or am I about to walk in on murder scene?" He asked curiously, raising an eyebrow.

"No, it was fine, actually." Louise replied, smiling wryly. "We hit a couple of snags here and there, but we're both still alive and un-maimed, and the flat's still in one piece too, though it still smells like tobacco…"

"Tobacco?" John asked. Did Sherlock relapse while he was away?

"Yes. While you were gone, he decided to some experiments, one of which involved an analysis of two hundred and something different types of tobacco ash. I had to leave before I choked on all of the smoke." She explained, still slightly chagrined over the fact that everything in the flat now reeked of nicotine, even though a whole week had passed since then.

'Sounds like it's been hard on you these past weeks." John said, smiling sympathetically.

"It wasn't all bad." She replied, shrugging. "He also taught me some basic judo moves in between cases. There was this really interesting one involving a melting laptop—"

"—Louise, what have you done to my…" Sherlock began to call out to her as the two of them entered the flat with John's luggage in tow, trailing off when he saw that their long absent friend and flatmate had returned. "Oh, John. Good. Just back from New Zealand?" Sherlock asked casually, before turning back to Louise. "What have you done to my sock index? I thought I asked you not to rearrange it when you were moving your things in with mine."

"I didn't. They were like that when I opened the drawer." Louise replied somewhat defensively, crossing her arms.

"Wait, sorry. Who's moving in with who?" John asked, thinking he clearly must have misheard. For the past month she had been living with them, Louise had been alternating between sleeping on Sherlock's bed when he wasn't using it and the couch, and she had been storing a few articles of clothing she had managed to accumulate here and there in a cardboard box that John let her keep in his closet, so people wouldn't trip over it.

"Well, since Louise and I are technically married now, it only make sense for us to share the same room, don't you think?" Sherlock said, as though it should have been completely obvious.

John's jaw literally dropped. He just stood there, staring at the two of them in disbelief, while Louise face-palmed. _Just what the bloody hell happened between these two while he was gone!_?

"Sherlock! I thought we agreed to let John get settled back in before we dropped that bomb on him!" Louise Holmes scolded her husband, a little concerned for John's mental wellbeing. The poor man was so shocked, he almost looked petrified.

"B… B-But… how_!_? _Why!_?" John finally managed to stutter.

"Mycroft." They both replied matter-of-factly, as though it should explain everything.

"… Y-You don't mean Mycroft made the two of you…?" John asked hesitantly, glancing between the two of them.

They nodded.

John's brain exploded. He had just received one shock per minute too many.

"Hello? John…?" Louise asked, waving her hand in front of his vacant eyes, concerned. She hoped they didn't just break the poor man. Was it really _that _shocking that she and Sherlock could ever get together?

"Perhaps we should have started from the beginning?" Sherlock suggested belatedly, finally noticing the severity of the state their friend was in. John must have let his imagination run a little _too _wild, judging by the amount of 'appalled' that was mixed in along with the 'confusion' showing on his frozen face.

"Gee, ya think?" Louise deadpanned rather sardonically. This was _exactly _why she had asked Sherlock _not_ to do what he just did!

—∞—

"… Does Mrs. Hudson know yet?" John finally asked once Louise and Sherlock had sat him down and properly explained everything that had transpired while he was gone to him. It made a bit more sense now that he had heard the whole story, but it was still hard to believe such a thing could really happen. He half wondered if Mycroft had recently sustained some sort of head injury…

"Oh, yes. She was thrilled." Sherlock deadpanned, earning himself a nudge from his petite wife, silently telling him to behave himself. You never knew when Mrs. Hudson might pop in for a visit, and it wouldn't do to have her overhear something that might hurt her feelings now, would it?

"We kind of edited the version of events we gave her. I didn't want to upset her…" Louise said, smiling apologetically at John.

"No, I think you made the right call." John said, shaking his head to let her know he wasn't upset with her. Sherlock had been the one who dealt the fatal blow, after all. "And at least we no longer have to worry about you getting deported now, do we?" he added on a lighter note. No point in brooding over something that couldn't be helped, right?

"Nope! And, poor Lestrade doesn't have to keep going on with that wild goose chase we sent him on either, since my new ID popped up in his search and let him know that I'm supposed to be an orphan, and I was passing through London while apparently attempting to backpack my way around the UK, while taking a year off from my college in America."

"Oh, is that so? That's rather adventurous of you." John commented, smiling wryly. What an elaborate cover story.

"I know, right? It certainly explains why I own a North Face jacket." She joked, grinning slyly.

_RING—!_ Whoever rang the doorbell must have something urgent to discuss with the inhabitants of 221B, because they pressed it for half a second at maximum pressure.

"Either of you expecting anyone?" John asked. It couldn't be Sarah. She was most likely still at her place, unpacking or sleeping off jetlag.

"It's a client." Sherlock stated, eyes glittering with excitement, as his lips curled up into a smirk. Having to rehash the past two weeks' events with John had been so incredibly dull, that he was more than ready to be rescued from this ever increasing feeling of boredom that had begun to creep over him by the promise of a new challenge. The flurry of pounding footsteps up the stairs echoed like thunder as the door to their flat flew open.

"—_You're in!"_ A dark-haired young man of approximately twenty years of age announced excitedly upon bursting into the room. Sherlock narrowed his eyes slightly as he scanned their visitor for clues. This young man was obviously a college student, an artist, sharing a flat with two roommates and a jumpy cat, and… _not_ a client. Sherlock clicked his tongue in disappointment as he lounged back in his chair, while John blinked in surprise, and Louise said,

"… I'm in? In what?" She had no idea what her new friend and fellow aspiring artist, Barry White, was talking about.

"The gallery! Jayson Burns' Gallery! When he dropped by the studio to take a look at some of my paintings, he spotted yours and said he had to have them! He wants to put 'Cognitive Dulling' and at least two others on display! Your work's gonna be in a real gallery!" Barry exclaimed, laughing, and grabbing her hands so he could shake them with such vigor, that John was half afraid her arms might fall off.

"_Get out!"_ Louise shouted in disbelief as a grin stretched across her face. "That is so _totally_ awesome~!" She sang happily, bouncing up and down with her hyper friend in a strange sort of celebratory dance. It looks like pooling their funds to share rented space for an art studio together had been worth it, after all.

John glanced at Sherlock, wondering what they were talking about. What studio? Since when did Louise have a studio? But the genius detective wasn't looking at the two artists or John. Was it just the doctor's imagination, or was Sherlock… sulking? He wasn't getting jealous again, was he?

"Well, I'm not sure I completely understand what just happened, but… congratulations?" John offered as he turned back to Louise and her friend, smiling wryly.


	11. Ch10 Art Imitates Life

Art Imitates Life

"I fail to see why I must come along as well." Sherlock stated bluntly, resting his head on his hand while he lounged languidly in his chair, already bored with the prospect of their plans for the night. Standing around uselessly in an art gallery and sipping wine while looking at random paintings wasn't exactly the consulting detective's idea of a good time. It sounded dreadfully dull. And it felt as though Louise was taking _forever_ to get ready. Perhaps it was because she had decided to actually put on some makeup for once… But just how much was she planning to put on? It wasn't like she needed it.

"Uh, maybe because Louise is your _wife_ now, and this is really important to her?" Watson suggested, giving the brilliant but socially inept detective a look to let him know that much should have been obvious. "Besides, it's not like you had anything better to do. Aren't you even the least bit curious about what her work looks like?" Neither of them had actually seen her paint anything before. Since the fumes from the varnish and turpentine could get really overpowering in a small space without proper ventilation, Louise had decided to spare them all the health hazard and wait until she could afford to rent a separate space to work in before taking up oil painting again.

"Hmph." Sherlock huffed lowly, crossing his arms, as he avoided his stare and glanced out the window. Although he could see John had a point, truth be told, Sherlock Holmes had never really cared much about art (unless it related to a case) and he didn't really see the point of it, but he knew admitting this out loud would most likely disappoint Louise and hurt her feelings, so he had very wisely chosen to keep his mouth shut. She could become just as passionate and excitable about art as he would when given a puzzle worth solving. So, even if he didn't understand why it held such an appeal for her, Sherlock could at least somewhat comprehend that her art was just as important to Louise as his cases were to him. And, the same way he needed an audience for his brilliant deductions, she needed one to admire her work as well.

John smiled wryly as he watched Sherlock. John could tell he was actually showing a remarkable amount of self-restraint for once. Perhaps Sherlock really did have more feelings for Louise than he cared to admit, after all…?

"Okay, sorry for the wait, guys. Everyone ready to go?" Louise asked as she walked out into the sitting room to join them, she finished putting on her second earring.

"My God." John said, speechless at the sight before them, causing Sherlock to turn and take a good look at her as well. The detective's eyes widened slightly in surprise. Instead of her usual messy bun, Louise had let her hair down and set it in loose, flowing curls that complemented the classic and mature style of makeup she had applied perfectly. The little black dress she had on was simple and relatively modest, but it accentuated and highlighted all of her curves (without drawing too much attention to the fact that she was somewhat lacking in the breast department) in a very attractive and flattering way… and the way those heels made her legs look... If he didn't know any better, he might think he was looking at a completely different person! The petite and bubbly young woman, who often had the misfortune of being mistaken for a highschooler, that they had all become so familiar with had somehow transformed into the very image of a sophisticated and mature social butterfly.

"What? … Too much?" Louise asked a little nervously when the two men just kept staring at her, wondering if she had gone a little overboard.

"No, no!" John said, snapping out of it. "You look fantastic!" He quickly reassured her, smiling proudly. It was like the little sister he had never had was suddenly all grown up and ready to make something of herself.

"Yes, you finally look your age." Sherlock added dryly, trying to hide his surprise. John frowned as he shot Sherlock a look of disapproval, silently scolding him. Why did Sherlock always have to—

"Really? Yes!" Louise exclaimed, grinning impishly, as she pumped her fist in the air triumphantly. John blinked. Oh… apparently, that had been exactly what she had wanted to hear, after all… These two really were well suited to each other.

Sherlock hid a smirk. Ah, there she was. The real, more playful Louise was finally starting to shine through from underneath all of that posh polish.

"Shall we go, then?" He asked as he stood from his chair and smoothed out his suit. "It would be a shame if you were late for your own party, don't you think?"

—∞—

"Wow." John said once they had arrived at the gallery, impressed. It's a good thing Barry had warned them all to dress up ahead of time for the show's opening night, because this was beginning to look more like a formal black tie function than just a plain, free art gallery for aspiring young artists, as he had claimed it was. A lot of the men were in tuxes, and most of the women were even more decked out than Louise.

"Yeah." Louise agreed, slightly taken aback. She hadn't been expecting this, either.

"It's because of the auction." Sherlock deduced confidently after brief glance around the gallery and the crowd. They had even set a side a section of the gallery and filled it with a speaking podium and chairs for the event.

"Oh. I see." Louise said, also spotting it now that she had finally come out of her 'awestruck Cinderella' mode. "I guess Barry forgot to mention that little detail."

"How…? Oh, nevermind." John said, shaking his head. "I don't know about you two, but I'm going to get some of that free wine." Louise laughed.

"Sounds like a plan to me." She said, smiling.

"Can you have alcohol with that combination of medications you are on?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes, but not a lot. My meds turn me into a real light-weight." Louise explained, smiling wryly.

"Lou-Lou, darling! You're looking simply _divine _tonight." Barry said playfully as he sauntered over to join them, grinning broadly. He was wearing a rather nice tux, especially considering he was supposed to be a poor art student.

"Hey, Barry. How many times do I have to tell you _not_ to call me that?" Louise asked, smiling wryly, clearly chagrined. That nickname had always embarrassed her ever since her grandmothers first started trying to call her that in front of her friends as a child.

"Lou-Lou?" Sherlock asked, smirking slightly. He knew ammunition when he spotted it.

"Oh, great. Now look what you've done." Louise told Barry, resisting the urge to face-palm.

"It's only been a few minutes, and already the balance of power on our little household has suffered an upset." John said, smiling ruefully as he shook is head at their antics. Barry's slipup was definitely going to come back to haunt her before the night was over.

"Oops. My apologies." Barry said lightly, not looking the least bit like he meant it. "Sorry, love, but I just couldn't help giving you a hard time after seeing the blinding crowd that's gathered around your paintings, while _my_ poor sculpture is just sitting all on its lonesome."

"You are such a drama queen, Barry." Louise said, smiling wryly, as she rolled her eyes at him. "It's mean to tease me like that."

"It's no lie, Lou!" Barry insisted, feigning exaggerated hurt over her doubt. "Come one, then. I'll just have to show you." He added, taking her by the wrist so he could lead her. Sherlock immediately latched onto her other wrist, acting as anchor to keep Barry from spiriting her away.

"… What are you doing?" Louise asked after a brief moment, slightly surprised. She hadn't really been expecting that. Neither had John or Barry, for matter.

"…'What', indeed." Sherlock said, surprising even himself, though he did not let go.

"Well, anyway…" Barry said after beat, "My sculpture and your painting are on the same side of the gallery. So, shall we all go together, then?" He suggested, deciding to take the hint Sherlock had unconsciously dropped that he didn't want to share Louise, and let go of her before a tug of war started.

—∞—

"You chose this one to enter?" Louise asked a little dubiously, arching an eyebrow. 'Avarice' by Barry White was a rather large, heavy, and precariously perched sculpture of a grotesquely obese and realistic piggy bank standing up two long and spindly little hind legs, with a posture and expression that was just the right blend of 'human' and 'inhuman' to give the casual observer the creeps. Although it didn't appear to be a part of the original bronze sculpture, a white, wooden wedge had been added in underneath one of the feet.

"I didn't choose anything. This was Mr. Burns' idea. He said he'd had his eye on it for months, ever since he happened to catch a glimpse of it when he came by to look at some of my paintings on a previous occasion." Barry explained, holding his hands up defensively. "He's usually only willing to take my paintings, so I was just happy he let me enter a sculpture for once, since that's what I'd rather be known for. Unlike you, I'm rubbish at creating my own original works when it comes to the brush."

"I'm sorry, but is there a problem?" John asked, wondering why Louise had reacted that way.

"Yeah. It's a puppy crusher." Louise stated bluntly. Despite what he had just said, she had seen enough of his work to know that Barry had a lot more skill as a painter than he did as a sculptor, even though he seemed to prefer the later.

"A puppy… _what_?" John asked incredulously, thinking he must have misheard.

"Puppy crusher." Barry repeated, smilingly wryly in amusement at the look on John's face. "It's a turn of phrase one of her old art teachers came up with to describe unbalanced sculptures, or I've been told." He explained, glancing at Louise.

"Right. I think he used such a horribly graphic name to stress how dangerous unsteady and wobbly sculptures can be if they fall on a living being. Sucky craftsmanship can maim and injure if they fall on someone. He wanted to make sure we would keep that in mind, especially while designing the 400lb concrete sculptures we had to do for our final projects. It's hard to forget a phrase like 'puppy crusher', don't you think?" Louise explained, smiling wryly.

"Your art teacher sounds like he would get along splendidly with my old drill sergeant." John chuckled, amused. You could always rely on Louise for an interesting story. She truly was a magnet for the strange and unusual… Wait, did that mean there was something strange about _him_?

"Um…" Louise said, furrowing her brow slightly and biting her lip, when she realized someone important was missing. There was a noticeable lack of snarky comments. "Where's Sherlock?"

—∞—

"'Cognitive Dulling' by Louise R. Holmes." Sherlock read aloud from the label beside a certain oil painting. It hadn't taken long for him to grow bored since this event was proving to be just a dull as he had predicted, so he had decided to go ahead and explore at his own pace rather than wait for the others.

It hadn't taken long to find the only piece he really cared to see. It measured 30" x 40"—large enough to make an impression on the viewer without being too obnoxious. The painting gave an overall impression of being very dark, grey, somber, and faded out, but if you looked closely, one could tell she had hardly used any actual black or grey paint. Louise had instead layered many different thin layers and glazes of complimentary colors on top of each other to give the painting a subtle depth that straightforward black and white would not have been able to achieve alone. Also, though there seemed to be some kind of figure within the layers of paint, everything was so hazy, as though the viewer were peering through some kind of smoke of fog, that it was extremely difficult to make out who or what the figure was. It could be anything and nothing all at the same time. What each viewer saw would depend on the individual's psychology, like a Rorschach test. It was actually quite clever… but there was something about it that made the genius detective feel somewhat uneasy…

"Amazing, isn't it?" A tall, relatively handsome and exceedingly well-dressed man with ginger hair said as he stepped up beside Sherlock, gazing up at the elegant painting with open admiration. "It's filled with so much of the artist's emotions—it's so powerful, so potent—the perfect storm of loss, confusion, struggle, worry, frustration, doubt, and even a hint of fear. The longer you stare at it, the more it feels like the painting is drawing you in, like you're going to be swallowed up. It's so strong that you can practically feel and understand what the artist must have felt while painting this, as if her emotions were your own. It must be terrible, feeling your own senses fail and abandon you like that."

Sherlock glanced at the man out the corner of his eye. He knew full well what cognitive dulling was, but hearing it put that way certainly helped explain his own sense of unease upon seeing Louise's painting. If Sherlock Holmes had a fear, it would be this—having his own mind turn against him and betray him by losing its lucidity and ability to reason. It must be frustrating, indeed, having a clever mind, yet being unable to use it as one wished, like trying to use 20/20 vision in fog. Even if you have the potential, it is virtually useless if you cannot use it.


	12. Ch12 Art Immitates Life Prt2

**Previously:**

_"Amazing, isn't it?" A tall, relatively handsome and exceedingly well-dressed man with ginger hair said as he stepped up beside Sherlock, gazing up at the elegant painting with open admiration. "It's filled with so much of the artist's emotions—it's so powerful, so potent—the perfect storm of loss, confusion, struggle, worry, frustration, doubt, and even a hint of fear. The longer you stare at it, the more it feels like the painting is drawing you in, like you're going to be swallowed up. It's so strong that you can practically feel and understand what the artist must have felt while painting this, as if her emotions were your own. It must be terrible, feeling your own senses fail and abandon you like that."_

_Sherlock glanced at the man out the corner of his eye. He knew full well what cognitive dulling was, but hearing it put that way certainly helped explain his own sense of unease upon seeing Louise's painting. If Sherlock Holmes had a fear, it would be this—having his own mind turn against him and betray him by losing its lucidity and ability to reason. It must be frustrating, indeed, having a clever mind, yet being unable to use it as one wished, like trying to use 20/20 vision in fog. Even if you have the potential, it is virtually useless if you cannot use it._

* * *

**Art Imitates Life: Part 2**

* * *

"Ah, there you are!" Louise exclaimed brightly upon spotting Sherlock by her painting. John and Barry weren't too far behind. Was it just Sherlock's imagination, or did John look relieved, as though he had been prepared to defuse a bomb and just discovered it was a dud…? "So, what do you think?" She asked. "Be honest with me. I can take it." Participating in some brutally honest critiques during her college art classes had helped her develop a thick skin, and it was good for an artist to receive constructive criticism on their work, since it could help them spot areas of weakness in a piece that they may have overlooked.

Sherlock was about to reply when the redheaded stranger beside him cut into their conversation.

"Excuse me, but are you the artist?" He asked Louise curiously, glancing between her and Sherlock, clearly wondering what their relationship might be.

"Oh, yes, I am." Louise replied, a little caught off guard, as she actually looked at the man standing beside her husband. "And you are…?" She inquired, smiling politely. He was looking at her with such open admiration, she wasn't quite sure how to react. His smile was genuine, but there was something about the look in his eyes that made her feel a bit uneasy. Should she offer to shake his hand or run and hide?

"I am—" the man began to introduce himself, only to be cut off by Sherlock.

"—Mr. Jayson Burns." The detective finished, putting on a polite smile, as he stepped in and shook the man's hand, noticing Louise's uncharacteristic hesitation to do so herself. Mr. Burns furrowed his brow slightly in confusion as he glanced between the petite woman he had been addressing and the tall man currently shaking his hand. Who… what…? "Why, yes. How did you know?" Burns asked, bemused. He wasn't that famous, was he?

"Oh, don't get him started." John mumbled, praying the future of poor Louise's artistic career wasn't about to take a swan dive thanks to Sherlock's mouth.

"As I moved through the gallery, I noticed you were going out of your way to greet various guests. A tailored designer suit, genuine Italian leather designer shoes, well groomed, manicured fingernails on rough hands full of calluses and stress marks, your golden cufflinks, and that pinky ring with the substantial canary diamond on it all tell me that you're a successful entrepreneur who used to perform heavy labor with his hands, but who can now afford to hire staff to do the work for him instead. And, judging by your attire, you've clearly got money to burn. Funding a small gallery like this should be no problem for a man who can afford a diamond of that quality and size. It also helps that your cufflinks have the initials J.B. engraved on them—'J.B.' for 'Jayson Burns'." Sherlock explained effortlessly, stunning the man before him. In fact, both Mr. Burns and Barry were now gaping at the brilliant detective with unabashed astonishment.

"Bloody hell… Louise told me you were quick, but I had assumed she was exaggerating..." Barry said, shaking his head, as he stared at Sherlock with wonder and tried to get ahold of himself. "I see now that I was grossly mistaken."

"Obviously." Sherlock replied drolly, suppressing a smirk, as he raised an eyebrow at his wife. So, she talked about him, did she…?

"I'm sorry, but _who_ are you?" Mr. Burns asked, glancing between them, wondering how they knew each other. Even Barry seemed to know more about the situation than he did.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Burns. This is my husband, Sherlock Holmes." Louise said, smiling apologetically, as she rather belatedly introduced them. "He's a consulting detective, as well as something of a showoff." She explained, shooting her husband a look, slightly chagrined. Couldn't he turn it off for just one night? John smirked slightly at that last little barb she threw in.

"And, this is our friend, Dr. John Watson." Louise added, motioning to John.

"Cheers." The good doctor greeted their host.

"Ah, I see… Well, I must say, Mr. Holmes, I find myself as deeply impressed with your observational skills as I am with Mrs. Holmes' artistic ability." Mr. Burns said affably. What a formidable couple. "Oh!" He said, a little startled when he realized his secretary was signaling him. "Is it that time already? Please, excuse me. It appears it's time for the auction to begin. It was a pleasure meeting all of you." Burns told them, smiling and nodding to each of them in turn as he excused himself and left to take care of business.

"So, what do you think?" Louise asked Sherlock and John, now that they had had a chance to see her work.

"I… think I'm glad you're seeing your seeing a psychiatrist again." John said slowly as he took in the depth and darkness of the painting. "I mean it's beautiful, but it makes me…"

"Feel like you're being drowned in a pool of a tragic sadness and beautiful melancholy?" Barry finished for him.

"Yes. Yes, something like that." John agreed with a wry chuckle and he forced his attention away from the magnetic painting and back onto the people with him.

"Hmm. Yeah, I'm thinking maybe I should burn it." Louise said, frowning slightly. "It seems to have an odd affect on people. It might be dangerous for one person to own it for too long…"

"I think it's brilliant." Sherlock said honestly, causing the others to glance at him.

"Really?" Louise asked dubiously, though he could tell she was pleased.

"You mean, you understand it?" John asked, feeling a little surprised.

"I believe so." Sherlock replied, somewhat surprised himself. He usually had a bit more trouble understanding the emotional side of things, but the feelings Louise had put into the painting projected themselves so strongly, that even he felt something looking at it. "I must say, you did a marvelous job giving form to such an abstract concept." He told his clever little wife.

"Why, thank you." Louise replied with a wry smile, feeling immensely pleased with herself at the moment for having managed to get so much genuine praise out of him for something that didn't involve a corpse.

"And what are these?" John asked, gesturing to the other two paintings by her that were on display. They were titled 'Tequila' and 'Screwdriver'. "Abstractions inspired by having one too many cocktails?" He asked humorously.

"They're not abstract, John." Sherlock said, furrowing his brow slightly as he turned his attention to the loud and colorful paintings. "These paintings are highly realistic."

"What?" John said, furrowing his own brow in confusion. They looked like Kandinsky crossed with Woodstock.

"While Sherlock was cataloguing the different properties of numerous alcoholic beverages, I took a peek at some of the slides. This is what I saw." Louise explained. Sherlock had been having a bit of trouble with the different color names past the primaries and secondaries since he had 'deleted' most of them.

"Huh." John said, staring at the gorgeous colors and shapes before him.

"I know, right?" Barry said. "Who knew booze could be so beautiful."

"I have more flavors back at the studio." Louise said. "I think the 'Piña Colada' is my personal favorite. It looks like bunch of butterfly wings."

"Oh. Sounds lovely." John said.

"Oh, looks like they're starting the auction." Barry said, glancing over in the direction Jayson burns had just left in. "I'm going to go see who buys what. Later." He told them, walking off with a wave.

"Some of Barry's paintings are being auctioned tonight. He likes to make sure they're going to a good home." Louise explained when she noticed the semi-curious look on John's face. "A lot of the work being sold tonight was done by art students like him—you know, still lifes, master copies, and so on. The kind of generic assignments you do while you're still in school. It's supposed to be a form of charity to help them pay the bills I guess. Barry's _really_ good at copying master paintings. You'd swear it was the real thing just looking at it, right down to the signature, so his usually sell like hotcakes."

"I take he is a better painter than he is a sculptor, then?" Sherlock asked. That giant pig of his seemed terribly unbalanced.

"Oh, yeah. Much better." Louise confirmed. "He's like a genius. He just has trouble coming up with original subject matter. For some reason it's easier for him to find inspiration when sculpting even though it's harder for him."

—∞—

The three flat mates ended up staying later than they had expected to. Several buyers who were more interested in Louise's paintings than the auction had appeared, and it had taken some time to sort out all the offers and decide who was getting what. Fortunately one of the employees at the gallery was there to help, because Louise came dangerously close to having a row with one man who insisted he had to have 'Cognitive Dulling' even though she didn't want to sell that one just yet. She felt the man was already a bit too unstable to be able to handle having it all to himself.

"You should have just let him have it." Sherlock told her while the watched the indignant man being escorted out of the gallery by a couple of security guards, one of whom Sherlock recognized as an off duty police officer. "He was offering quite a lot."

"Money isn't everything." Louise replied with a shrug. "And I don't want my painting getting a bad reputation because I sold it to a nut who might off himself after staring at it for too long."

"Nice. Very sympathetic." John said, a bit concerned Sherlock's callousness might be rubbing off on her.

"Sorry. I guess I'm still miffed he called me a 'crazy bitch'." She replied honestly. John nodded his head. Okay, he could understand that. Louise was a bit sensitive to the 'C' word after everything she'd been through. They decided to wait a little longer before leaving to give the man time to give up and go home if he was still angry enough to try to attempt waiting outside so he could jump them when they left. He appeared to be the vindictive type.


End file.
